SYRIA 

THE  LAND  OF 
LEBANON 


LEWIS  GASTON   LE, 


sO 

in 
o 

bJ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

REICHERT  COLLECTION 

PRESENTED  BY 
SIDNEY  M.  EHRMAN 

JACK  GOMPERTZ 

BERTHOLD  GUGGENHIME 

EDWARD  H.  HELLER 

I.  W.  HELLMAN 

LESSING  J.  ROSENWALD 

RABBI  IRVING  F.  REICHERT 


SYRIA 
THE  LAND 

OF 
LEBANON 


By  LEWIS  GASTOX  LEAKY 

THE  REAL  PALESTINE  OF  TO-DAY 
ANDORRA,  THE  HIDDEN  REPUBLIC 
THE  CHRISTMAS  CITY 
SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 


SYRIA 

THE  LAND  OF 
LEBANON 


BY 
LEWIS  GASTON  LEARY,  PH.D. 

FORMERLY  INSTRUCTOR  IN  THE  AMERICAN 
COLLEGE,  BEIRUT,  SYRIA 

Author  of  The  Real  Palestine  of  To-day, 
Andorra,  the  Hidden  Republic,  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

McBRIDE,  NAST  &  COMPANY 
1913 


Copyright,    1913,    by 
NAST  &  Co. 


Published,  November,  1913 


GIF! 


AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 
TO  HIM  WHO  FIRST  TURNED  MY  THOUGHTS 

TOWARD  SYRIA 

MY  FORMER  PRECEPTOR  AND  ALWAYS 
LOYAL  FRIEND 

GEORGE  L.  ROBINSON 


M608911 


PREFACE 

Although  Syria  possesses  a  rare  natural  beauty 
and  boasts  a  wealth  of  historic  and  religious  interest, 
its  fame  has  been  so  overshadowed  by  that  of  the 
neighboring  Land  of  Israel  that  most  travelers  are 
content  to  take  the  easy  railway  journey  to  Baalbek 
and  Damascus,  and  know  nothing  of  the  wild  moun- 
tain valleys  and  snow-capped  summits  of  Lebanon  or 
the  many  ancient  shrines  of  a  country  whose  history 
reaches  far  back  of  the  classic  days  of  Greece. 

It  is  therefore  with  great  pleasure  that  I  accede 
to  the  request  of  the  publishers  of  my  "  Real  Pales- 
tine of  To-day  "  and  supplement  the  earlier  work  by 
the  present  companion-volume  on  Syria;  so  that, 
though  the  books  may  be  read  independently,  the 
two  together  may  give  a  complete  view  of  the  lands 
of  the  Bible. 

The  chapter  on  Palmyra  is  from  the  pen  of  Pro- 
fessor Harvey  Porter,  Ph.D.,  of  the  Syrian  Prot- 
estant College;  and  for  many  of  the  hitherto  un- 
published photographs  I  am  indebted  to  other  mem- 
bers of  the  faculty  of  that  institution.  Grateful  ac- 
knowledgment is  also  made  to  The  World  To-day, 
The  New  Era,  The  Sunday  School  Times,  The  New- 
ark (N.  J.)  New\s,  and  especially  to  Travel  and 
Scribner's  Magazine,  for  permission  to  include  ma- 


PREFACE 

terial  which  originally  appeared  in  these  publications. 

In  the  writing  of  Arabic  words,  my  aim  has  been 
smooth  reading,  rather  than  a  systematic  translitera- 
tion of  the  numerous  sounds  which  are  not  found  in 
English.  As  an  aid  to  pronunciation,  it  should  be 
noted  that  the  stress  always  falls  upon  a  syllable 
bearing  a  circumflex  accent. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  book  is  written  from  a 
more  intimate  and  personal  viewpoint  than  the  vol- 
ume on  Palestine.  I  could  not  write  otherwise  of  the 
country  which  was  for  years  my  own  home  and  where 
to-day  I  have  many  cherished  friends  among  both 
Syrians  and  Franks.  In  fact,  I  must  write  very 
slowly ;  for  every  now  and  then  I  lay  down  my  pen 
and,  with  a  homesick  lump  in  my  throat,  dream  over 
again  the  happy  days  in  that  land  of  wondrous 
beauty  which  I  still  love  with  all  my  heart. 

LEWIS  GASTON  LEAHY 

Pelham  Manor,  N.  Y., 
October  15,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  .                                                                   PAGE 

I     THE  WHITE   MOUNTAIN 1 

II     THE  LEFT-HAND    LAND 6 

III     THE  CITY  OF   SATURN 26 

IV     THE  SPIRIT   OF    OLYMPIA 44 

V     ACROSS  THE  MOUNTAINS 60 

VI     THE  LAND   OF   Uz 72 

VII     THE  EARTHLY  PARADISE 88 

VIII  THE  PORT  OF  THE  WILDERNESS  ....     95 

IX     THE  RICHES  OF  DAMASCUS 110 

X     THE  DESERT    CAPITAL 128 

XI     SOME  SALT  PEOPLE 144 

XII     THE  CEDARS  OF  THE  LORD 163 

XIII  THE  GIANT  STONES  OF  BAALBEK  .      .      .      .184 

XIV  HAMATH  THE  GREAT   .                                      .    201 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Evening  in  the  harbor  of  Beirut      .      .        Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Along  the  coast  north  of  Beirut 4 

Looking  up  the  western  slopes  of  Lebanon  .      .      .10 

Lebanon   soldiers 16 

Village  of  Deir  el-Kamr 22 

Bay  of  Beirut  and  Mount  Sunnin 26 

Pine  groves  of  Beirut 32 

Bridge  over  the  Dog  River 36 

Procession  in  Beirut 42 

Students  of  the  American  College 48 

Cape  of  Beirut  viewed  from  Lebanon   ....      60 

Old  Bridge  over  the  Barada  River 70 

Cascade  in  the  Yarmuk  Valley 76 

A  caravan 82 

Damascus — a  distant  view 90 

Damascus — one  of  the  more  modern  avenues    .      .100 

A  Syrian  cafe 106 

Damascus — court  of  a  private  residence  .      .      .      .112 

Damascus — Moslem   cemetery 116 

Damascus— The  Street  called  Straight  .      .      .      .120 
Damascus — The   Omayyade    Mosque       .      .      .      .126 


THE    ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Palmyra — General  view  of  the  ruins      .      .      .      .134 

Palmyra — the   Triple   Gate 140 

Funeral  procession  of  the  patriarch       .      .      .      .160 

A  summer  camp  in  Lebanon 164 

The  Cedar  Mountain 170 

Source  of  the  Kadisha  River 174 

The  oldest  Cedar  of  Lebanon 182 

Baalbek — the  six  great  columns 192 

Baalbek — the  stone  in  the  quarry 198 

Kama — the   Orontes   River 210 

Hama — one  of  the  water-wheels 216 

MAPS  AND  PLANS 

The  railway  from  Beirut  to  Damascus   ....  62 

Cross-section   of  Syria 64 

The  Hauran 74 

The  temples  of  Baalbek 194 


SYRIA 
THE  LAND 

OF 
LEBANON 


Syria,  The  Land  of  Lebanon 

CHAPTER  I 

THE     WHITE      MOUNTAIN 

FAR  off  on  the  eastern  horizon  the  thin  haze  of 
an  October  dawn  gently  blended  into  denser 
masses  of  silvery  white,  which  rose  like  dream 
mountains  above  the  edge  of  the  placid  azure  sea. 
The  soft,  ethereal  shapes  did  not  change  their  out- 
lines, however,  as  clouds  do;  and,  as  the  steamer 
drew  nearer  to  them,  the  rounded  forms  gradually 
took  on  an  appearance  of  bulk  and  solidity.  These 
were  no  mere  piles  of  morning  mist,  but  the  massive 
shoulders  of  the  ancient,  famous,  glorious  range 
whose  strange  silvery  tint  when  viewed  from  afar 
caused  it  long,  long  ago  to  be  called  Lebanon  —  the 
"White  Mountain." 

As  we  approached  the  shore,  the  sun  rose  into  a 
sky  of  brighter  blue  than  ever  domed  Italian  seas, 
and  great  waves  of  color  swept  downward  over  the 
round  white  mountainsides.  I  have  traveled  since 
in  many  lands ;  I  know  the  beauty  of  Amalfi's  cliffs, 
the  rich  tints  of  the  southern  coast  of  Spain,  the 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

mystic  alpenglow  on  the  snow-clad  peaks  of  Switz- 
erland and  the  delicate  opalescence  of  the  Isles  of 
Greece ;  but  I  have  never  seen  —  I  never  expect  to 
see  —  another  glory  of  earth  which  can  compare 
with  the  wondrous  coloring  of  the  mountains  of 
Lebanon. 

We  watched  floods  of  red  and  orange  sweep  across 
the  lofty  summits  and  then  brighten  into  crowns  of 
mellow  gold.  We  looked  into  gorges  tinged  with  a 
purple  so  rich  and  deep  that  the  color  itself  seemed 
almost  a  tangible  thing.  Nearer  still  we  drew,  and 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  there  came  into  view 
dark  forests  of  evergreen  and  broad,  sloping  orchards 
set  here  and  there  with  tiny  villages  of  shining  white. 
Then  there  appeared  long  lines  of  silvery  surf  and 
yellow  sand;  and  we  skirted  the  northern  edge  of 
a  rock-bound  promontory  to  the  crowded  harbor  of 
Beirut. 

The  wording  of  the  Old  Testament  might  lead  one 
to  infer  that  Lebanon  is  a  single  mountain,  and  the 
modern  Syrians  also  familiarly  refer  to  it  as  ej-Jebel 
— "  The  Mountain.''  It  is  not,  however,  an  isolated 
peak,  but  an  entire  range,  which  begins  at  the  north- 
ern border  of  Palestine  and  stretches  for  a  hundred 
miles  along  the  easternmost  shore  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. The  narrow  coastal  plain  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished at  a  distance.  Straight  out  of  the  wa- 
ter the  thousand  summits  rise  in  ever  loftier  ranks 

[    2    ] 


THE   WHITE   MOUNTAIN 


up  to  the  level  profile  of  the  central  ridge,  two  miles 
above  the  sea. 

This  "  goodly  mountain,"  which  dying  Moses 
longed  to  see,  became  to  Hebrew  poets  the  consum- 
mate symbol  of  all  that  was  most  strong  and  virile, 
most  beautiful  and  enduring.  The  springs  of  Leb- 
anon, the  forests  of  Lebanon,  the  glory  of  Lebanon 
—  of  these  they  dreamed  and,  in  ecstatic  eulogy  or 
lofty  spiritual  hope,  of  these  they  loved  to  sing. 
"  Thou  art  a  fountain  of  gardens,  a  well  of  living 
waters,  and  flowing  streams  from  Lebanon,"  ex- 
claims the  hero  of  the  Song  of  Songs.  "  The  smell 
of  thy  garments  is  like  the  smell  of  Lebanon."  The 
bride,  too,  sings  of  her  lover,  "  His  aspect  is  like 
Lebanon,  excellent  as  the  cedars."  *  In  more  solemn 
vein,  the  prophets  who  spoke  of  the  coming  Day  of 
Jehovah  drew  imperishable  imagery  from  these  north- 
ern mountains.  "  The  desert  shall  rejoice,  and 
blossom  as  the  rose.  .  .  .  The  glory  of  Lebanon  shall 
be  given  unto  it."  2  Israel  "  shall  blossom  as  the  lily, 
and  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Lebanon.  .  .  .  They  that 
dwell  under  his  shadow  shall  return ;  they  shall  re- 
vive as  the  grain,  and  blossom  as  the  vine:  the  scent 
thereof  shall  be  as  the  wine  of  Lebanon."  3  "  The 
glory  of  Lebanon  shall  come  unto  thee,  the  fir-tree, 
the  pine,  and  the  box-tree  together."  4 

Toward  evening  I  strolled  out  to  the  end  of  the 

iSong  of  Songs  4:llf,  5:15.          s  Hosea  14:5,  7. 
2  Isaiah  35:1  f.  4  Isaiah  60:13. 

[    3    1 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

cape  and  looked  for  the  first  time  upon  what  those 
of  us  who  have  called  Beirut  our  home  may  be  par- 
doned for  believing  to  be  the  loveliest  prospect  in 
all  this  beautiful  world.  From  this  point  can  be 
viewed  eighty  miles  of  a  coast  which  in  the  time  of 
Abraham  had  already  seen  the  rise  and  fall  of  many 
a  proud  civilization.  To  the  south  is  the  ancient 
city  of  Sidon,  thirty  miles  away,  and  the  rocky  point 
of  Sarepta  and,  in  the  dim  distance,  the  bold  head- 
land of  the  "  Ladder  of  Tyre."  To  the  north,  be- 
yond the  gorges  of  the  River  of  Death  and  the  Dog 
River,  is  the  River  of  Adonis,  where  the  loves  of 
heaven  and  earth  were  celebrated  many  centuries 
before  there  were  Greeks  in  Greece.  Still  farther 
north,  Jebail  —  ancient  Byblos  —  disputes  Damas- 
cus' claim  to  be  the  oldest  of  cities;  and  thirty- 
five  miles  away  the  view  of  the  coast  is  closed 
by  the  cape  which  the  Greeks  called  Theoprosopon, 
the  "  Face  of  God."  The  Syrians,  however,  have 
named  this  Ras  fsh-Shukkah  or  the  "  Split-off 
Point,"  and  say  that  it  was  torn  away  from  the 
mountain  and  thrown  bodily  into  the  sea  during  the 
great  earthquake  of  July  9,  551,  A.  D.  In  this  land 
of  fearful  cataclysms,  the  story  is  quite  possible  of  be- 
lief. 

At  the  west  is  the  expanse  of  the  "  Great  Sea." 
At  the  east,  just  back  of  the  cape,  are  the  great 
mountains.  Everything  along  the  shore  of  the  Med- 
iterranean is  warm,  almost  tropical  in  its  verdure, 

[  4  ] 


THE   WHITE  MOUNTAIN 


and  resplendent  in  the  orient  hues  painted  by  the 
Syrian  sun.  The  lower  slopes  of  Lebanon  are  soft 
with  vineyards  and  groves  of  olive,  fig  and  mulberry. 
Above  the  green  orchards  and  white  villages  are  dark 
pine  forests,  and  somber  gorges  cut  deep  between 
smooth,  swelling  moorlands.  Higher  still  the  deso- 
late, lonely  slopes  are  quite  bare  of  vegetation;  yet, 
in  the  clear  atmosphere,  they  seem  as  soft  as  if  they 
were  overlaid  with  bright  velvets  and  shimmering 
silks.  Last  of  all,  the  eye  is  drawn  up  to  the  sum- 
mits of  Keneiseh  and  Sunnin,  tinged  with  orange  and 
purple  in  the  summer  sunset,  and  in  winter  covered 
with  vast  sheets  of  snow. 

From  the  tropics  to  the  chill  barrenness  of  the  arc- 
tics —  it  is  all  comprehended  in  one  glorious  pano- 
rama. What  an  Arabic  poet  wrote  of  yonder  tow- 
ering Sunnin  is  true  of  the  whole  range  — 

"  He  bears  winter  upon  his  head, 
Spring  upon  his  shoulders, 
Autumn  in  his  bosom, 
While   summer   lies   slumbering  at  his   feet." 

But  Lebanon  is  more  than  a  splendid  spectacle. 
There  would  be  no  Syria,  no  fertile  mother  of  the 
olive  and  orange,  no  land  of  the  long  martial  his- 
tory, no  tale  of  ancient  culture  or  modern  enterprise, 
save  for  the  Mountain,  whose  lofty  peaks  break  the 
rain-clouds  borne  hither  by  the  west  winds  and  drop 
their  precious  moisture  on  the  thirsty  soil  below. 

[  5  1 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    LEFT-HAND    LAND 

THE    Arab    geographer    always    faces    towards 
the  east.     So  the  southernmost  portion  of  the 
Arabian  peninsula  is   to  him   the   Yemen  or 
"  Right,"  and  this  northern  district  of  ours  is  called 
esh-Shdm    or    the    "  Left-hand    Land."     The    name 
Suriya  or  "  Syria,"  an  ancient  corruption  of  "  As- 
syria," is  also,  however,  frequently  employed,  espe- 
cially by  the  Turks. 

As  this  territory  is  not  a  modern  political  unit,  its 
limits  are  variously  defined,  both  by  natives  and  for- 
eigners. The  whole  country  between  Asia  Minor  and 
Egypt  is  often  called  Syria,  and  its  inhabitants,  who 
have  the  same  language  and  customs  and  are  of  prac- 
tically the  same  —  very  mixed  —  blood,  are  known 
as  Syrians.  But  from  the  historical  viewpoint  it  is 
perhaps  more  exact  to  distinguish  between  Palestine 
and  Syria,  and  confine  the  latter  name  to  the  terri- 
tory which  lies  to  the  north  of  the  Hebrew  boundary- 
town  of  Dan. 

Syria  then,  as  we  shall  use  the  word,  extends  from 
the  southern  slopes  of  Mount  Hermon  to  the  Bay  of 
Alexandretta,  a  distance  of  about  two  hundred  and 

[  6  ] 


THE   LEFT-HAND    LAND 


fifty  miles.  It  is  a  long,  narrow  country.  At  the 
west  is  the  Mediterranean;  at  the  east  is  the  Syrian 
Desert;  within  these  boundaries,  the  width  is  never 
more  than  fifty  miles. 

The  wealth  and  power  of  Syria  have  always  been 
found  in  its  southern  half  —  the  country  of  Lebanon. 
Here  the  mountains  are  divided  into  two  parallel 
ranges  by  the  long  valley  which  the  Greeks  called 
"  Hollow  Syria."  Between  this  valley  and  the  Med- 
iterranean is  Lebanon;  between  the  valley  and  the 
desert  is  the  twin  range  of  Anti-Lebanon.1  The 
western  mountains  rise  gradually  toward  their  north- 
ern end,  where  they  attain  an  elevation  of  over  11,- 
000  feet.  The  eastern  chain,  however,  reaches  its 
culmination  in  its  southernmost  peak,  Mount  Her- 
mon,  which  is  9,000  feet  above  the  sea.  On  the 
coastal  plain  beside  Lebanon  lie  the  ancient  cities 
of  Tyre,  Sidon  and  Byblos  and  the  modern  ports  of 
Beirut  and  Tripoli.  On  a  peninsula  of  fertility 
watered  by  the  streams  of  Anti-Lebanon,  Damascus 
stands  between  the  mountains  and  the  desert.  The 
rest  of  Syria  is  made  up  of  lofty  summits,  rocky 
gorges  resounding  with  the  tumult  of  cave-born  tor- 
rents, high  wind-swept  pasture  lands  and  broad, 
fertile  valleys  slanting  up  between  the  mountains. 

The  lovelorn  Syrian  does  not  sing  dolefully  of  a 
sweetheart  who  "  lies  over  the  ocean."  To  him  the 
typical  barrier  is  not  the  sea.  Bern  ubenik  ej-jebel 

i  See  map,  page  62,  and  cross-section,  page  64. 
[   7  ] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

runs  the  plaintive  lament  — "  Between  me  and  thee 
is  the  mountain."  The  country  is  more  crowded 
with  towering  peaks  than  Palestine  or  Greece,  but 
it  is  more  fertile  than  either.  No  other  region 
of  equal  size  has  such  a  variety  of  vegetable  life; 
no  other  land  is  more  healthful ;  and  to  those  of  us 
who  have  lived  in  the  shadow  of  Lebanon,  none  is 
more  beautiful. 

Syria,  as  we  have  defined  it,  includes  one  entire 
vilayet,  or  province,  of  the  Turkish  Empire  and  parts 
of  three  others.  Its  extreme  northern  portion  is  in- 
cluded in  the  great  Vilayet  of  Aleppo,  which  stretches 
far  across  the  desert  to  Mesopotamia.  Anti-Leba- 
non and  most  of  Hollow  Syria  lie  within  the  Vilayet 
of  esh-STidtn  or  "  Syria."  This  important  province, 
whose  capital  is  Damascus,  takes  in  all  the  arable 
land  east  of  the  Jordan  as  far  as  the  southern  end 
of  the  Dead  Sea.  The  independent  Mutesarrtfiyet, 
or  sub-province,  of  Lebanon  is  practically  co-exten- 
sive with  this  range,  but  touches  the  Mediterranean 
only  for  a  few  miles  and  has  no  seaport.  Almost 
the  entire  coast  belongs  to  the  Vilayet  of  Beirut, 
which  reaches  from  Mount  Akra,  a  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  north  of  the  provincial  capital,  to  within  sight 
of  the  harbor  of  Jaffa  and  includes  nearly  all  of  Pal- 
estine west  of  the  Jordan  River. 

In  the  absence  of  any  census,  we  can  hardly  do 
more  than  guess  at  the  population  of  Syria.  It 
is  probably  above  two  million.  The  Turkish  resi- 

[  8  ] 


THE    LEFT-HAND    LAND 


dents  are  for  the  most  part  government  officials,  and 
there  are  few  Jews  outside  of  Beirut  and  Damascus. 
The  mass  of  the  inhabitants  are  descendants  of  the 
Syrians,  or  Arameans,  of  Biblical  times ;  but  the 
native  blood  has  been  mixed  with  that  of  many  other 
races.  It  is  scarcely  correct  to  call  these  people 
"  Arabs,"  except  in  the  sense  that  they  are  an  Ara- 
bic-speaking race.  In  countenance,  as  well  as  cus- 
toms, they  differ  considerably  from  their  less  civi- 
lized cousins  who  roam  the  neighboring  deserts. 

The  ecclesiastical  bodies  of  Syria  are  numerous, 
jealous  and  extremely  fanatical.  In  striking  con- 
trast to  the  awkward  reticence  of  the  West  regard- 
ing religious  matters,  every  Syrian  not  only  counts 
himself  an  adherent  of  the  faith  into  which  he  was 
born,  but  he  thrusts  that  fact  upon  your  attention 
and,  on  the  slightest  provocation,  is  ready  to  fight 
for  his  belief.  A  man's  ancestors,  descendants  and 
home  may  be  cursed  with  all  the  wealth  of  Oriental 
vituperation,  and  he  will  probably  accept  this  as  a 
mere  emphatic  conversational  embellishment.  But 
let  the  single  word  dinakl  "  thy  religion !  "  be  spoken 
with  a  curseful  intonation  to  a  follower  of  a  different 
faith,  and  the  spirit  of  murder  is  let  loose. 

Islam  is,  of  course,  the  official  religion  of  the  gov- 
ernment; but  in  the  southern  half  of  the  country 
the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  are  Christians.  The 
most  powerful  church  is  the  Greek  Orthodox;  next 
in  importance  come  the  Maronites  and  Greek  Catho- 

[  9  1 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

lies,  who  render  allegiance  to  the  Pope  of  Rome. 
Nearly  a  dozen  other  sects,  exclusive  of  the  Prot- 
estants, are  actively  working  and  hating  and  schem- 
ing in  Syria.  Many  of  the  members  of  these  Orien- 
tal churches  are  sincere  and  devout;  but,  on  the 
whole,  the  organized  Christianity  of  Syria,  like  that 
of  neighboring  Palestine,2  has  been  so  inextricably 
entangled  with  political  ambitions,  sectarian  jealousy 
and  civil  warfare  that  its  moral  and  religious  teach- 
ings are  in  danger  of  being  completely  neglected. 

Syrian  Mohammedanism  is  also  divided  against  it- 
self, though  not  to  such  a  hazardous  degree  as  is 
Syrian  Christianity.  Many  villages  in  northern 
Lebanon  are  occupied  by  adherents  of  the  schismatic 
Shiite  sect.  These  Metawileh,  as  they  are  called, 
bear  an  unenviable  reputation  for  their  ignorance, 
dishonesty,  brutality  and,  what  is  very  unusual  in 
S}Tria,  their  lack  of  hospitality.  They  will  refuse 
accommodations  to  a  traveler  and  are  accustomed 
to  break  the  earthenware  drinking-jug  which  has 
been  defiled  by  the  touch  of  a  stranger.  Still  far- 
ther north  there  survive  a  few  settlements  of  the  Is- 
mailians,  who  during  the  Middle  Ages  were  known 
as  the  Assa$sms  —  literally,  "  hashish-smokers." 
Their  character  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  the  only  thing  they  gave  the  Western  world 
was  the  word  "  assassin." 

2  See  further  the  author's  The  Real  Palestine  of  To-day, 
chapter  III. 

[10] 


THE    LEFT-HAND    LAND 


In  the  mountains  which  bear  their  name  are  a  hun- 
dred thousand  Nusairiyeh,  who  migrated  hither 
many  centuries  ago  from  Mesopotamia  and  still  hold 
to  a  strange,  mystic  nature-worship.  Traces 
of  the  vile  phallic  cults  of  ancient  Syria  are  also 
found  among  the  wilder  regions  of  the  north. 

The  sixty  thousand  Druses  of  central  and  south- 
ern Lebanon  are  frequently  confused  with  the  Mos- 
lems by  careless  writers ;  on  the  other  hand  they  are 
sometimes  referred  to  as  a  Christian  sect.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  are  neither.  Although  this 
faith  originated  among  followers  of  Islam,  the  early 
Druses  suffered  many  persecutions  at  the  hands  of 
the  Moslems,  who  classed  them  as  "  infidels,"  while 
their  feuds  with  the  Christian  populace  of  Lebanon 
have  led  to  some  of  the  most  cruel  and  bitter  strug- 
gles of  modern  times. 

In  the  eleventh  century  an  insane  ruler  of  Egypt 
named  Hakim  Biamrillah  declared  himself  to  be  the 
Imam,  or  incarnation  of  the  Deity,  and  his  preposter- 
ous claims  found  an  enthusiastic  prophet  in  a  Persian 
resident  of  Cairo  called  ed-Durazy,  from  whom  is 
derived  the  familiar  name  "  Druse."  The  adherents 
of  this  sect,  however,  call  themselves  Muwahhidin, 
or  "  Unitarians."  Such  was  the  wrath  of  the 
Egyptian  Moslems  at  el-Durazy's  preaching  that 
he  was  forced  to  flee  to  the  mountains  of  Syria, 
where  the  new  faith  spread  rapidly  among  the  inhab- 
itants of  Hermon  and  southern  Lebanon.  Shortly 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

after  ed-Durazy's  flight  the  caliph  Hakim  mysteri- 
ously disappeared.  Doubtless  he  was  assassinated; 
but  the  Druses  believe  that  he  is  miraculously  con- 
cealed until  the  appointed  day  of  his  final  revelation 
as  the  victorious  Mahdi. 

The  peculiar  doctrines  of  the  Druses  were  sys- 
tematized by  a  companion  of  the  prophet's  exile, 
Hamzeh  ibn  Ahmed,  since  known  as  the  "  Guide." 
The  tenets  of  this  faith  are  still,  however,  only 
partly  understood  by  Western  scholars ;  for  its  most 
important  beliefs  are  kept  in  great  secrecy,  none  of 
the  women  and  only  a  very  small  proportion  of  the 
men  are  initiated  into  its  esoteric  teachings,  con- 
verts to  other  faiths  are  practically  unknown,  and  the 
Druses  hold  that,  in  conversation  with  a  Moslem 
or  a  Christian,  it  is  permissible  for  them  to  pretend 
acquiescence  in  the  other's  statements. 

Their  extreme  emphasis  on  the  unity  of  God,  whom 
they  divest  of  all  attributes,  goes  even  beyond  that 
of  Mohammedanism.  Yet  this  is  accompanied  by  a 
belief  in  the  divine  self-revelation  through  a  succes- 
sion of  incarnations  which  began  with  Adam  and 
ended  with  the  Caliph  Hakim  and  included  Jesus 
and  Mohammed.  They  also  hold  the  doctrine  of 
transmigration  of  souls  and  think  that  many  of 
them  will  be  reincarnated  in  the  heart  of  China, 
where,  according  to  their  strange  tradition,  there 
are  multitudes  of  Chinese  Druses.  They  do  not 
practice  the  Moslem  virtues  of  prayer,  fasting, 

[12] 


THE    LEFT-HAND   LAND 


formal  almsgiving  and  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca ;  but 
the  few  initiates  rigorously  abstain  from  both  wine 
and  tobacco. 

Probably  all  that  most  Druses  know  about  their 
religion  is  that  they  are  Druses.  Yet  their  feeling 
of  separation  from  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try, which  amounts  to  a  sense  of  racial  difference, 
has  made  them  the  most  proud  and  independent  — 
not  to  say  ungovernable  —  class  in  the  Turkish  Em- 
pire. The  faces  of  the  Druse  men  are  the  hand- 
somest and  haughtiest  in  Syria,  and  their  forms  are 
tall  and  stalwart.  They  are  a  brave,  intellectual, 
courteous,  hospitable  people ;  they  treat  their  wives 
far  better  than  do  the  Moslems,  and  in  time  of  war 
they  never  massacre  women.  Some  of  the  Druse 
emirs  whom  I  have  met  are  refined,  correctly  dressed, 
well-educated  gentlemen  who  are  as  much  at  home  on 
the  boulevards  of  Paris  as  they  are  among  their  own 
mountains.  Yet  anything  more  than  a  superficial 
acquaintance  with  them  is  prevented  by  the  suave 
hypocrisy  which  their  religion  inculcates ;  their  other- 
wise admirable  courage  is  marred  by  heartless  cruelty 
and  a  relentless  carrying  out  of  the  ancient  law  of 
blood  for  blood;  and  the  splendid  organization  with 
which  they  meet  the  aggressions  of  an  alien  enemy 
is  weakened  by  their  interminable  intertribal  feuds. 
The  history  of  the  great  Druse  families  of  Lebanon 
is  stained  by  many  an  awful  record  of  treachery, 
fratricide  and  massacre. 

[13] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

In  the  summer  of  I860,  twenty  years  of  inter- 
mittent altercations  between  the  Druses  and  Maro- 
nites  culminated  in  an  outbreak  of  fearful  religious 
warfare.  The  Druses  were  perhaps  no  braver  than 
their  opponents;  but  they  showed  better  discipline, 
had  more  able  leaders  and,  from  the  beginning,  were 
encouraged  by  the  support  of  the  Moslem  govern- 
ment. So  the  war  soon  developed  into  a  mere  suc- 
cession of  massacres  of  the  unfortunate  Maronites. 
Turkish  officials  connived  at  these  outrages,  and 
Turkish  regiments,  presumably  sent  to  restore  order 
in  the  troubled  districts,  either  disarmed  the  Chris- 
tians and  then  turned  them  over  to  be  dealt  with  by 
their  enemies,  or  else  themselves  added  to  the  horrors 
of  the  slaughter  by  killing  even  the  women  whom  the 
Druses  had  spared.  Maronite  monasteries  were 
sacked  and  their  monks  put  to  death  with  barbarous 
tortures,  a  hundred  villages  were  burned,  and  multi- 
tudes of  unarmed  peasants  who  had  sought  protec- 
tion in  the  courtyards  of  government  buildings  were 
allowed  to  be  shot  down  by  their  relentless  enemies. 
It  will  never  be  known  just  how  many  Christians  were 
slain  during  that  awful  summer.  Seven  thousand 
are  said  to  have  perished  in  Damascus  alone;  and 
some  conception  of  the  vast  number  of  survivors  who 
were  left  homeless  and  destitute  is  gained  when  we 
learn  that  the  Anglo-American  Relief  Committee  of 
Beirut  had  upon  its  lists  the  names  of  twenty-seven 
thousand  refugees. 

[14] 


THE    LEFT-HAND    LAND 


The  Christian  nations  were  shocked  into  activity 
by  the  terrible  tidings  from  Syria.  Fifty  European 
warships  soon  reached  the  harbor  of  Beirut,  and  an 
army  of  ten  thousand  French  soldiers  was  landed. 
Just  in  time  to  avoid  foreign  intervention,  however, 
the  sultan  sent  two  of  his  own  regiments  from  Con- 
stantinople to  quell  the  disturbance,  and  shortly  aft- 
erwards the  grand  vizier  himself  came  to  Syria  with 
additional  troops.  These  soldiers  were  but  a  hand- 
ful in  comparison  with  the  Druse  army  or  even  the 
Turkish  regiments  which  had  been  assisting  in  the 
slaughter;  but  when  the  mysterious,  unwritten  mes- 
sages go  forth  from  Constantinople  commanding  that 
a  massacre  shall  be  stopped  —  or  shall  be  begun  — 
they  are  understood  at  once  in  the  most  inaccessible 
mountain  villages  of  the  empire. 

As  soon  as  order  was  restored,  the  conscription, 
from  which  holy  Damascus  had  been  exempt  since  the 
days  of  Mohammed,  was  strictly  enforced  as  a  puni- 
tive measure;  and  over  twenty  thousand  Damascene 
Moslems  were  sent  in  chains  to  the  coast,  whence  they 
were  transported  to  regiments  in  distant  provinces 
of  Turkey.  Furthermore,  a  levy  of  a  million  dollars 
was  laid  upon  the  city,  and  its  governor  and  a  hun- 
dred prominent  Moslem  residents  were  hanged  for 
their  share  in  the  massacres,  as  were  also  a  few  offi- 
cials in  other  parts  of  the  country.  Not  a  single 
Druse,  however,  was  executed  for  partaking  in  the 
awful  slaughter. 

[15] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

The  European  powers  now  insisted  that  there 
should  never  be  another  Moslem  ruler  over  the  Chris- 
tians of  Lebanon,  and  such  pressure  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  Turkish  government  that  the  district 
was  made  a  practically  independent  province.  Its 
governor  must  be,  like  the  Maronites,  a  Latin  Chris- 
tian, although,  in  justice  to  the  Druse  population, 
he  may  not  be  an  inhabitant  of  Syria.  His  appoint- 
ment is  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  six  great  pow- 
ers and  he  cannot  be  removed  without  the  consent 
of  their  ambassadors  at  Constantinople.  The  prov- 
ince pays  no  taxes  to  the  imperial  government,  nor 
may  Turkish  troops  be  stationed  within  its  bound- 
aries except  under  certain  stringent  restrictions. 
Lebanon  has  its  own  army  of  volunteer  militia;  and 
the  free,  independent  bearing  of  these  mountaineers 
is  in  striking  contrast  to  that  of  the  underpaid,  un- 
derfed and  poorly  clothed  conscripts  of  the  regular 
army. 

The  rulers  appointed  under  the  new  regime  have 
not  all  been  equally  capable  and  honest.  Some  have 
understood  the  language  of  bakhsJwesh  as  well  as 
their  Turkish  predecessors.  The  commercial 
growth  of  the  province  has  also  been  hampered  by 
the  lack  of  a  seaport.  Yet  since  1861  the  moun- 
taineers, Druses  and  Maronites  alike,  have  enjoyed 
an  unprecedented  quiet  and  an  increasing  material 
prosperity.  The  old  feudal  wars  have  ceased,  the 
tyrannical  political  power  of  the  Maronite  hierarchy 

[16] 


THE    LEFT-HAND   LAND 


is  greatly  diminished,  education  is  rapidly  advancing 
and  the  valuation  of  property  in  the  Lebanon 
district  has  greatly  advanced.  In  the  words  of 
Lord  Dufferin,  who  was  a  member  of  the  inter- 
national commission  which  framed  the  new  plan  of 
government,  "  until  the  present  day  the  Lebanon  has 
been  the  most  peaceful,  the  most  contented  and  the 
most  prosperous  province  of  the  Ottoman  Domin- 
ion." 

Yet  the  cruel  past  has  not  entirely  sunk  into  ob- 
livion. The  Maronite  village  of  Deir  el-Kamr,  for 
instance,  has  still  one  mosque ;  but  no  Moslem  dwells 
there,  nor  dare  a  Druse  pass  through  this  neighbor- 
hood where  the  massacre  of  unarmed  Christians  lasted 
until  more  than  two  thousand  corpses  lay  within  the 
enclosure  of  the  government-house.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  Druse  hamlets  where  no  Maronite 
would  trust  himself.  Ten  years  ago,  when  Beirut 
was  in  one  of  its  periodic  tumults,  five  thousand  Leb- 
anon soldiers,  stalwart,  brave  and  well-armed,  en- 
camped just  outside  the  city  limits,  waiting  for  one 
more  anti-Christian  outbreak  —  which  fortunately 
did  not  come  —  as  an  excuse  for  wiping  out  the  Mos- 
lem population.  Looking  across  a  deep  gorge  of 
Lebanon,  I  once  saw  a  file  of  Turkish  soldiers  labori- 
ously making  their  way  up  the  steep  mountainside. 
They  were  seeking  a  murderer,  so  I  was  told,  but  a 
murderer  of  no  common  mettle ;  for  from  his  inacces- 
sible retreat  among  the  cliffs  he  had  sent  to  the  gov- 

[17] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

ernment  of  Beirut  a  bold  acknowledgment  of  his 
crimes,  accompanied  by  the  threat  that  whenever  in 
the  future  a  Christian  should  be  assassinated  in  that 
city  he  would  immediately  descend  to  the  coast  and 
take  the  life  of  a  Moslem  in  exchange. 

On  a  stormy  winter  night  I  sat  by  the  charcoal 
fire  in  a  Maronite  hut  high  up  among  the  mountains, 
and  heard  read  from  a  grimy,  much-thumbed  man- 
uscript a  long  poem  which  described  the  brave  part 
played  by  that  village  in  the  struggles  of  fifty  years 
ago.  The  sonorous  Arabic  sentences  had  almost  an 
Homeric  ring.  Like  the  list  of  Grecian  ships 
sounded  the  rhythmic  roll  of  the  local  heroes  of  half 
a  century  gone  by.  And  as  the  dull  light  of  the  fire 
shone  on  the  circle  of  dark,  bearded  mountaineers, 
the  grim  lines  of  their  faces  showed  that  the  valor  of 
the  village  had  not  weakened  with  the  passing  years, 
nor  had  the  wrongs  of  the  village  fathers  been  for- 
got. 

To  the  traveler,  bewildered  by  strange  customs 
and  by  peculiar  ways  of  doing  familiar  things,  this 
seems  indeed  a  "  Left-hand  Land."  The  Syrian 
holds  a  loose  sheet  of  paper  in  his  palm  and  writes 
from  right  to  left.  Yet  numbers  are  written,  like 
ours,  from  left  to  right.  In  beckoning,  the  fingers 
are  turned  downward.  To  nod  "  No  "  the  head  is 
jerked  upward,  and  added  emphasis  is  sometimes  given 
by  a  sharp  cluck  of  the  tongue.  The  carpenter 

[18] 


THE   LEFT-HAND   LAND 


draws  his  saw  toward  him  on  the  cutting  stroke.  The 
oarsman  likes  to  stand  up  and  face  the  bow  of  his 
boat.  When  digging,  one  man  holds  the  handle  of 
the  shovel  while  two  others  do  most  of  the  work  by 
pulling  it  with  ropes.  Except  in  cities  which  have 
felt  European  influence,  it  is  the  men  who  wear  skirts 
or  flowing  bloomers,  and  the  women  who  wear  trou- 
sers. Keys  are  put  into  the  locks  upside  down.  In 
entering  a  house,  the  hat  is  kept  on  the  head,  but 
the  shoes  are  removed. 

Grown  men  greet  one  another  in  public  with  em- 
braces and  kisses.  You  see  them  walking  along  hand 
in  hand,  or  smelling  little  nosegays.  Yet  these  acts 
are  not  necessarily  indicative  of  effeminacy.  For  all 
you  know,  these  same  fellows  may  occupy  their  lei- 
sure moments  with  highway  robbery.  The  slightest 
difference  of  opinion  gives  rise  to  excited  vitupera- 
tion and  offensive  gesticulation ;  but  a  blow  is  seldom 
given.  When  a  Syrian  does  smite,  he  employs  no 
halfway  measures :  he  smites  to  kill.  I  only  once  saw 
a  blow  struck  in  anger :  then  a  club  four  inches  thick 
was,  without  warning,  brought  down  with  full  force 
upon  the  head  of  an  unfortunate  boatman. 

In  this  topsy-turvy  land,  parents  take  the  name 
of  their  first-born  son,  and  use  it  even  in  signing 
legal  papers.  The  gate-keeper  at  the  American  Col- 
lege, for  instance,  was  never  called  anything  but  Abu 
Mohammed,  "  the  Father  of  Mohammed."  When  a 
son  is  despaired  of,  the  public  humiliation  is  some- 

[19] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

times  avoided  by  inventing  one.     It  is  quite  possible 
that  Abu  Zeki  or  Abu  Said  has  no  children  at  all. 

The  daughters  of  the  family  are  often  called  after 
jewels  or  flowers  or  constellations ;  yet,  except  in 
Protestant  families,  the  birth  of  a  girl  is  not  an 
occasion  for  rejoicing.  One  father  insisted  on  chris- 
tening an  unwelcome  girl  baby  Balash,  which  might 
be  translated  "  Nothing  doing !  "  Another  parent, 
who  already  had  six  daughters,  was  so  disgusted  at 
the  advent  of  a  seventh  that  he  named  her  Bikeffeh, 
"  Enough ! "  A  Maronite  proverb  says,  "  The 
threshold  mourns  forty  days  when  a  girl  is  born." 
Nevertheless  the  lot  of  the  Christian  woman,  even  in 
communities  where  Christianity  means  hardly  more 
than  a  political  organization,  is  usually  far  better 
than  that  of  her  Moslem  sisters. 

Surnames  are  very  indefinite  and  shifting  matters. 
If  Musa  has  a  son  named  Jurjus,  the  boy  will  nat- 
urally be  known  as  Jurjus  Musa.  But  the  father 
will,  of  course,  change  his  own  name  to  Abu  Jurjus. 
Many  surnames  are  taken  from  occupations.  Had- 
dad  or  "  Smith  "  is  here,  as  in  every  country,  one  of 
the  most  common.  Others  are  derived  from  locali- 
ties. Hanna  Shweiri  is  "  John  from  Shweir,"  and 
Suleiman  Beiruti  is  "  Beirut  Solomon."  Real  fam- 
ily or  clan  names,  however,  are  not  uncommon,  es- 
pecially among  the  aristocracy. 

As  a  man  becomes  more  prosperous  he  will  often 

[20] 


THE    LEFT-HAND   LAND 


drop  his  commonplace  appellation  in  favor  of  a  more 
dignified  one,  which  perhaps  revives  an  ancient  but 
long  neglected  designation  of  his  family.  This  easy 
putting  on  and  off  of  names  sometimes  leads  to  con- 
siderable confusion.  I  once  asked  all  over  a  moun- 
tain village  for  the  house  of  a  friend  whom  I  had 
known  in  Beirut,  and  met  with  the  most  positive  as- 
surances that  no  such  person  lived  there.  Fortu- 
nately I  happened  to  remember  that  my  friend's  fa- 
ther was  a  baker.  "  John  Baker !  Oh,  yes,  every- 
body in  town  knows  him!  But  that  other  fellow 
you've  been  asking  about  —  we  never  heard  of  him." 
The  mountain  boys,  especially,  used  often  to  take 
new  surnames  when  they  came  to  college.  Some- 
times they  afterward  exchanged  these  for  still  better 
ones.  So  a  facetious  professor  greeted  a  returning 
student  with  "  Well,  Eliya,  what  is  your  name  this 
year?  "  An  exasperated  inquirer,  who  had  vainly 
tried  to  pin  down  a  certain  youth  to  a  satisfactory 
statement  of  his  chosen  titles,  finally  exclaimed, 
"Now,  tell  me,  what  is  your  name?"  Then  came 
the  maddeningly  irritating  answer  which  so  fre- 
quently tempts  the  Occidental  to  commit  homicide, 
"  As  you  like,  sir !  "  Another  young  man,  who  had 
narrowly  escaped  expulsion  for  his  various  misdeeds, 
decided  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf;  so  he  came  back  to 
the  college  the  next  autumn  with  a  different  name  — 
and  made  it  good.  The  Syrian  understands  better 

[21] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

than  do  we  the  full  content  of  the  divine  promise  of 
"  a  new  name."  3 

At  first  this  seems  a  land  of  inexplicable  contrasts. 
I  could  write  of  its  ravaging  pestilences  so  that 
one  would  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  Syria  is 
notable  for  its  healthfulness.  I  could  record  fearful 
massacres  until  the  reader  would  think  me  foolishly 
daring  for  never  carrying  a  weapon  during  all  my 
travels.  I  could  —  quite  truthfully  —  tell  how  a 
Syrian  landscape  lacks  so  many  of  the  old  familiar 
aspects  of  our  home  scenes,  and  give  no  hint  of  the 
glorious  panoramas  of  this  fertile,  well-watered, 
bright-colored  land  —  where  the  mountains  sit  with 
their  feet  in  the  Great  Sea  and  their  heads  among  the 
glorious  clouds,  while  mantles  of  shimmering  silver 
fall  above  their  richly  tinted  garments. 

As  is  the  land,  so  are  its  people;  not  easy  to  un- 
derstand and  justly  appraise.  They  are  cruel 
and  cunning  and  prefer  to  destroy  an  enemy  by 
a  sudden  rush  of  overwhelming  odds  rather  than  to 
meet  him  in  equal  combat.  Yes,  this  is  true  of 
many  of  them;  yet  they  have  a  childlike  delight  in 
sweet  scents,  bright  colors,  beautiful  flowers  and  sim- 
ple games.  Although  they  may  live  in  poverty  and 
squalor,  they  are  very  frugal  and  temperate.  They 
are  ignorant;  but  when  the  opportunity  comes  they 
study  with  a  pathetic  earnestness  and  an  unrivaled 
quickness.  At  half-past  three  of  cold  winter  morn- 

s  Rev.  2:17,  etc. 
[22] 


THE   LEFT-HAND    LAND 


ings  I  used  to  hear  a  servant  going  the  rounds  of 
my  dormitory  to  waken  the  young  men,  at  their  own4 
request,  so  that  they  might  spend  four  hours  before 
breakfast  at  their  books.  Some  of  those  same  inde- 
fatigable students  have  since  led  their  classes  in  great 
American  and  European  universities. 

It  is  true  that  the  Syrians  nurse  vengeful  feuds 
for  generation  after  generation.  That  is  partly 
because  family  ties  are  so  wonderfully  strong  among 
them.  "  I  and  my  brother  against  my  cousin ;  I 
and  my  cousin  against  my  neighbor,"  runs  the  prov- 
erb. When  two  brothers  are  in  the  same  class  at 
school  or  college,  they  seldom  have  other  chums,  but 
insist  upon  sitting  side  by  side  in  the  classroom, 
and  during  their  free  hours  they  wander  about  the 
campus  with  arms  around  each  other's  shoulders. 
If  an  elder  brother  goes  away  to  make  his  fortune 
in  some  distant  country,  he  never  forgets  the  loved 
ones  at  home;  but  year  after  year  the  remittances 
will  come,  until  all  the  younger  children  have  been 
educated  or  have  been  brought  across  the  sea  to 
share  in  the  opportunities  of  the  new  land  of  promise. 
A  trusted  American  missionary  had  at  one  time  in  his 
possession  no  less  than  five  thousand  dollars  which 
had  been  sent  from  America  for  the  parents  and 
younger  children  of  a  single  mountain  village. 

The  ambition  of  the  Syrian  is  as  boundless  as  his 
daring,  and  his  courageous  persistence  is  a  buttress 
to  his  splendid  capacity  for  both  business  and  schol- 

[23] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

arship.  The  son  of  any  laboring  man  may,  for  all 
one  knows,  become  a  high  Egyptian  official,  a  wealthy 
merchant  of  the  Argentine,  a  French  poet  or  the 
pastor  of  an  American  church.  The  "  Arab  "  drag- 
oman of  your  tourist  party  may  be  the  proud  father 
of  a  boy  whose  learned  works  in  choicest  English 
you  hope  sometime  to  read,  or  whose  surgical  skill 
may  be  called  upon  to  carry  you  through  a  critical 
operation.  These  are  not  fanciful  possibilities.  I 
have  particular  names  in  mind  as  I  write ;  and  the 
tale  of  the  bravely  endured  hardships  of  some  of 
these  sons  of  Syria  who  have  made  good  in  many  a 
far-off  land  would  match  the  romantic  story  of  the 
early  struggles  of  Garfield  or  Lincoln. 

The  hospitality  of  the  Syrians  is  no  mere  form 
or  pretense,  but  a  sincere,  winsome  joy  in  minister- 
ing to  the  poor  and  the  stranger.  Their  courtesy 
is  fortified  by  an  invincible  tact  and  a  very  keen 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  Their  speech,  the 
strange  guttural  Arabic  which  sounds  so  uncouth  to 
the  passing  stranger,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful, 
expressive  and  widespread  of  languages,  and  has  a 
wealth  of  fascinating  literature.  Their  religious  fa- 
naticism is  grounded  in  an  intense,  unshakable  be- 
lief in  the  fact  and  the  necessity  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion; and  he  who  in  the  heat  of  a  ferocious  bigotry 
will  kill  his  neighbor  is  willing,  if  need  be,  to  die  him- 
self for  the  faith,  whether  it  be  in  open  warfare  or  by 
the  tortures  of  a  slow  martyrdom. 

[24] 


THE    LEFT-HAND    LAND 


The  native  ideals  of  truthfulness  and  business  honor 
are  not,  to  be  frank,  those  of  Anglo-Saxon  nations. 
It  is  not  considered  very  insulting  to  call  a  Syrian  a 
liar.  But  even  in  the  Western  business  world  all  is 
not  truth  and  uprightness,  and  these  men  and  women 
have  an  excuse  which  we  have  not.  For  centuries 
their  land  has  been  ruled  by  a  government  based 
upon  untruth  and  injustice,  and  very  often  the 
only  protection  for  life  or  property  lay  in  evasion 
and  deceit.  The  wonder  is  that,  in  spite  of  all,  there 
are  still  so  many  Syrians  who  would  swear  to  their 
own  hurt  and  change  not,  and  who  boldly  urge  upon 
their  people  the  eradication  of  what  is  perhaps  their 
greatest  racial  shortcoming. 

In  brief,  with  all  his  faults,  which  we  of  the  West 
are  apt  to  over-emphasize  because  they  are  not  the 
same  as  our  faults,  the  Syrian  is  frugal,  temperate, 
ambitious,  adaptable,  intellectually  brilliant,  capa- 
ble of  infinite  self-sacrifice  for  any  great  end,  essen- 
tially religious,  generously  hospitable,  courteous  in 
social  intercourse  and,  to  his  loved  ones,  extremely 
affectionate  and  faithful. 

When  to  these  admirable  racial  traits  is  added  a 
sincere  acceptance  of  the  moral  teachings  of  reli- 
gion, then,  whatever  his  creed,  the  Syrian  makes  a 
friend  to  be  cherished  very  close  to  your  heart. 


[25] 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    CITY    OF    SATURN 

ND  behold,  I  am  now  in  Beirut."  Thus 
wrote  Prince  Rib-addi  to  his  royal  mas- 
ter,  Pharaoh  Amenhotep,  thirty-three 
centuries  ago;  and  when  the  Tell  el-Amarna  Letters 
were  sent  from  Syria  to  Egypt,  about  1400  B.  C., 
Beirut  had  long  been  one  of  the  chief  commercial 
cities  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean.  According  to 
a  Greek  tradition,  it  was  founded  in  the  Golden  Age 
by  the  Titan  Kronos,  or  Saturn,  the  father  of  Zeus. 
The  tutelary  deity  of  the  seaport,  however,  was  Po- 
seidon  (Neptune),  another  son  of  Saturn,  who  is 
represented  on  its  coins  driving  his  sea-horses,  or 
standing  on  the  prow  of  a  ship  with  his  trident  in 
one  hand  and  a  dolphin  in  the  other. 

The  authentic  history  of  the  city  begins  with 
the  records  of  its  conquerors.  Rameses  II.  of 
Egypt  and  Sennacherib  of  Assyria  commemorated 
their  successful  Syrian  campaigns  by  inscriptions 
still  existing  on  the  cliffs  of  the  Dog  River,  just 
north  of  Beirut.  Centuries  later,  Alexander  the 
Great  marched  his  conquering  army  through 
the  city,  Pompey  added  it  to  the  Roman  Em- 

[26] 


THE    CITY    OF   SATURN 


pire,  and  Augustus  visited  here  his  son-in-law, 
the  local  governor.  It  was  in  Beirut  that  Herod 
the  Great  appeared  as  the  accuser  of  his  two  sons, 
who  were  thereupon  convicted  of  conspiracy  and  put 
to  death  by  strangling.  Vespasian  passed  through 
its  streets  in  triumphal  progress  on  his  way  to  as- 
sume the  imperial  crown,  and  in  its  immense  amphi- 
theater Titus  celebrated  his  capture  of  Jerusalem 
by  a  magnificent  series  of  shows  and  gladiatorial 
contests.  During  the  First  Crusade,  Baldwin, 
Count  of  Flanders  and  ruler  of  the  Latin  Kingdom 
of  Jerusalem,  wrested  the  city  from  the  Moslems 
after  a  long  siege  and  put  its  inhabitants  to  the 
sword.  Seventy  years  later,  the  greatest  of  all  Sar- 
acen leaders,  Saladin,  recaptured  the  city  from  the 
Christians.  The  names  of  the  mighty  warriors  who 
since  then  have  fought  for  the  possession  of  this  old, 
old  seaport  are  less  familiar  to  Western  readers ;  yet 
few  cities  have  had  for  so  many  centuries  such  inti- 
mate association  with  the  most  renowned  characters  of 
history.  There  is  a  local  tradition  that  Christ  Him- 
self visited  Beirut  on  the  occasion  of  His  journey 
"  into  the  borders  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,"  and  during 
the  Middle  Ages  there  was  exhibited  here  a  miracle- 
working  picture  of  Him,  which  was  said  to  have  been 
painted  by  Nicodemus  the  Pharisee. 

The  inner  harbor,  still  known  as  Mar  Jurjus  or 
"  St.  George,"  is  associated  with  what  is  perhaps  the 
oldest  of  all  myths.  This  took  on  varying  forms 

[27] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

during  the  millenniums  of  its  progress  westward 
from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Atlantic.  We  find  it 
first  in  the  Babylonian  Creation  Epic,  which  tells  of 
the  destruction  of  the  chaos-monster  by  the  solar 
deity,  Marduk.  When  the  Greeks  took  over  the  an- 
cient Asiatic  mythology,  it  was  Perseus,  child  of  the 
sun-god,  who  slew  the  dragon  at  Jaffa  and  released 
the  beautiful  Andromeda.  In  the  sixth  century 
A.  D.,  the  exploit  was  transferred  to  St.  George, 
whose  victory  over  the  sea-monster  was  perhaps  an 
unconscious  parable  of  the  overthrow  of  heathenism 
by  Christianity. 

St.  George  appears  to  have  been  a  real  person, 
who  suffered  martyrdom  about  the  year  300,  pos- 
sibly at  Lydda  in  Palestine,  where  his  tomb  is  still 
shown.  Singularly  enough,  this  Syrian  Christian 
has  not  only  been  the  patron  saint  of  England  since 
Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  came  to  the  Holy  Land  on  the 
Third  Crusade,  but  is  also  a  very  popular  hero  of  the 
Moslems. 

The  historic  character  had,  of  course,  nothing  to 
do  with  any  dragon,  and  it  was  only  many  centuries 
after  his  death  that  he  became  identified  with  the  hero 
of  the  ancient  Semitic  myth,  under  its  Perseus  form. 
A  mighty  monster,  so  the  story  runs,  had  long  terri- 
fied the  district  of  Beirut,  and  was  prevented  from 
destroying  the  city  only  by  receiving  the  annual  sac- 
rifice of  a  beautiful  virgin.  One  year  the  fateful 
lot  fell  upon  the  daughter  of  the  governor.  When 

[28] 


THE   CITY    OF    SATURN 


the  poor  girl  was  taken  to  the  appointed  place,  she 
knelt  in  prayer  and  besought  God  to  send  her  a  de- 
liverer. Whereupon  St.  George  appeared  in  shining 
armor  and,  after  a  tremendous  battle,  slew  the  mon- 
ster, delivered  the  maiden,  and  freed  the  city  from  its 
long  reign  of  terror.  Whether,  like  his  prototype 
Perseus,  he  married  the  rescued  virgin,  the  story 
does  not  relate.  We  are  told,  however,  that  the 
grateful  father  built  a  church  in  honor  of  the  val- 
iant champion  and  also  instituted  a  yearly  feast  in 
commemoration  of  his  daughter's  deliverance.  Dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages,  this  was  celebrated  by  Chris- 
tians and  Moslems  alike.  Beside  the  Dog  River  can 
still  be  seen  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  church  and  a 
mosque,  both  of  which  marked  the  supposed  locality 
of  the  contest ;  and  here  also  is  a  very  old  well,  into 
which  the  body  of  the  slain  dragon  is  said  to  have 
been  thrown. 

The  word  Beirut  is  doubtless  derived  from  the  an- 
cient Semitic  place-name  Beeroth,1  which  means, 
"  wells,"  and  throughout  the  Arab  world  such  a  des- 
ignation immediately  calls  up  a  picture  of  fertile 
prosperity.  The  triangular  cape  on  whose  northern 
shore  the  city  is  situated  projects  from  the  foot  of 
Lebanon  five  miles  into  the  Mediterranean  and  has 
an  area  of  about  sixteen  square  miles.  This  level 
broadening  of  the  coastal  plain  appears  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  country  just  north  and  south  of  it, 
iCf.  Deut.  10:6,  Josh.  9:17. 
[29] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

where  there  is  often  hardly  room  for  a  bridle-path 
between  the  cliffs  and  the  sea.  Beirut  itself  has  a 
population  of  nearly  200,000,  and  within  sight  are 
many  scores  of  flourishing  villages.  Indeed,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  Damascus  and  its  environs, 
this  is  the  most  densely  populated,  intensely  culti- 
vated and  prosperous  district  in  either  Syria  or  Pal- 
estine. 

The  southwest  side  of  the  cape  is  bordered  by 
great  piles  of  sand,  which  is  said  to  have  been  brought 
hither  by  wind  and  tide  all  the  way  from  Egypt. 
Perhaps  it  did  not  travel  so  far  as  that;  but  after 
every  heavy  rain  a  yellow  stream  runs  northward 
through  the  Mediterranean  close  to  the  shore  and  de- 
posits its  sediment  when  it  strikes  the  edge  of  the 
cape.  The  rapid  shifting  of  these  sand  dunes  under 
the  influence  of  the  prevailing  west  winds  is  a  con- 
tinual menace  to  the  city,  and  the  surrounding  or- 
chards would  soon  be  overwhelmed  if  it  were  not  for 
a  series  of  closely-planted  pine  groves  which,  since 
the  first  trees  were  set  out  here  in  the  seventeenth 
century  by  the  Druse  prince  Fakhreddin,  have 
served  as  a  barrier  against  the  inroads  of  the  wind- 
swept sand. 

Back  of  the  dark  line  of  protecting  pines,  millions 
upon  millions  of  olive  trees  appear  as  one  great  mass 
of  shimmering  green.  When  Ibrahim  Pasha,  the 
Egyptian  conqueror  of  Syria,  looked  down  from  Leb- 
anon upon  the  country  about  Beirut,  he  exclaimed 

[30] 


THE   CITY    OF    SATURN 


that  three  seas  lay  beneath  him;  the  blue  Mediter- 
ranean, the  yellow  waste  of  sand  and  the  silvery  sur- 
face of  the  olive  forest  which  floods  the  fertile  plain. 

Near  the  lighthouse  on  the  point,  where  perpen- 
dicular cliffs  rise  two  hundred  feet  out  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, the  storm  waves  have  cut  a  number  of 
lofty  caverns.  The  water  in  most  of  these  is  so 
filled  with  fallen  rocks  that,  except  when  the  sea  is 
absolutely  calm,  it  is  unsafe  to  take  a  boat  into  them ; 
but  the  series  of  deep,  gloomy  caves  is  a  challenge 
to  the  swimmer.  Beneath  the  surface  of  the  crystal 
water  can  be  seen  huge  boulders  covered  with  bril- 
liant sea-anemones  and  sharp-spined  sea-urchins. 
From  the  liquid  pavement  the  roof  arches  up  into 
the  darkness  like  the  nave  of  an  old  cathedral, 
or  like  some  ruined  palace  of  Neptune.  Occa- 
sional ledges  provide  convenient  resting-places  where 
one  can  sit  and  watch  the  pigeons  flying  in  and  out, 
or  listen  to  the  twitter  of  the  swallows  and  the  chat- 
ter of  the  frightened  bats.  The  caves  sometimes 
harbor  larger  denizens  than  these.  More  than  once, 
when  swimming  before  them,  I  have  been  startled  to 
see  the  dog-like  head  of  a  seal  appear  in  the  water 
close  beside  me. 

Slanting  up  into  the  walls  of  these  caverns  are 
narrow  tunnels  where  the  softer  rock  has  been  worn 
away  by  the  seeping  of  the  surface  water  from 
above.  If  one  cares  to  risk  losing  a  little  skin  from 
the  elbows  and  knees,  it  is  possible  to  climb  many 

[31] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

yards  up  these  steep,  slippery  shafts.  One  day, 
while  walking  along  the  top  of  the  cliff,  I  came  upon 
the  upper  end  of  a  natural  chimney  whose  formation 
appeared  so  unusually  regular  that  I  became  curious 
to  see  what  it  might  lead  to.  So  I  slid  down  twelve 
or  fifteen  feet  and  dropped  into  the  ashes  of  a  recent 
fire  which  had  been  built  in  the  center  of  a  cozy  little 
cave  high  above  the  water.  The  rocky  point  of  the 
cape,  honeycombed  with  dark  passages  and  secret 
hiding-places,  is  a  favorite  resort  of  smugglers,  espe- 
cially on  moonless  nights ;  and  in  the  bazaars  of  the 
city  you  can  buy  many  articles  which  have  not  been 
submitted  to  the  extortions  of  the  Turkish  custom- 
house. While  I  was  a  resident  of  Beirut,  the  "  king 
of  the  smugglers,"  who  lived  near  me,  killed  three  rev- 
enue officers  who  were  interfering  with  his  illicit 
trade.  Bribery  and  intimidation,  however,  soon  re- 
moved all  danger  of  prosecution  for  his  various 
crimes ;  and  a  few  days  later  I  saw  him  driving 
defiantly  along  the  Shore  Road  in  his  elegant  car- 
riage. 

Beirut  has  suffered  so  severely  from  earthquakes, 
as  well  as  from  besieging  armies,  that  there  remain 
no  traces  of  very  old  buildings  except  some  columns 
of  reddish  Egyptian  granite.  Only  a  few  of  these 
can  now  be  seen  above  ground  or  lying  under  water 
at  the  bottom  of  the  harbor,  where  doubtless  they 
were  rolled  by  earthquake  shocks;  but  from  the  fre- 
quency with  which  they  appear  whenever  excava- 

[32] 


THE    CITY    OF    SATURN 


tions  are  made,  there  must  be  a  multitude  of  them 
scattered  all  over  the  site  of  the  ancient  city. 

Among  the  mountains  just  back  of  the  cape  are 
the  ruins  of  a  Roman  aqueduct,  which  supplied  the 
city  from  a  spring  in  the  valley  of  the  Beirut  River, 
six  miles  away.  The  ravine  was  bridged  by  a  series 
of  six  arches,  arranged  in  four  tiers.  The  lowest  of 
these  had  two  spans ;  the  highest  had  twenty-five,  and 
rose  a  hundred  and  sixty  feet  above  the  river-bed. 
On  the  west  bank,  the  water  was  carried  through  a 
tunnel  cut  in  the  solid  rock  of  the  mountainside. 
This  opening  is  now  filled  with  fallen  stones,  and  of 
the  aqueduct  itself  there  remain  only  a  few  broken 
arches  at  the  eastern  end ;  yet  the  massive  ruin,  rising 
high  above  the  river  amid  these  desolate,  lonely  sur- 
roundings, still  suggests  the  wealth  and  enterprise 
of  the  centuries  long  gone  by. 

During  the  last  forty  years  Beirut  has  been  abun- 
dantly provided  with  water  piped  from  the  Dog  River 
by  an  English  company.  So  pure  is  this  supply  that 
since  its  use  became  common  the  city  has  not  known 
a  single  outbreak  of  cholera  or  plague,  though  the 
surrounding  country  has  often  been  devastated  by 
these  diseases.  One  memorable  year  we  watched  a 
fearful  epidemic  creep  up  the  coast  toward  us,  curve 
inland  round  the  edge  of  the  district  supplied  with 
Dog  River  water,  and  then  sweep  back  again  to  the 
seashore  and  continue  its  terrible  journey  northward. 

The  Dog  River  was  in  ancient  times  known  as  the 
[33] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Lycus  or  "  Wolf  "  River.  It  is  said  to  have  received 
its  present  name  from  a  marvelous  statue  of  a  dog 
set  above  the  cliffs,  which  opened  its  stone  mouth  and 
barked  lustily  at  the  approach  of  a  hostile  ship.  In- 
deed, to  this  very  day  a  vivid  imagination  can  dis-. 
cern  the  likeness  of  a  huge  mastiff  in  a  certain  boul- 
der, now  submerged  in  the  center  of  the  stream. 

The  pass  up  its  rocky  gorge  has  been  trod  by 
many  a  great  army.  The  well-preserved  bridge 
which  now  spans  the  stream  was  built  by  the  sultan 
Selim  four  hundred  years  ago;  but  a  Latin  inscrip- 
tion on  the  cliff  indicates  that  a  military  road  was 
constructed  here  by  Marcus  Aurelius  as  early  as 
the  second  century,  and  on  the  sheer  rocks  at  the 
left  bank  of  the  river  are  cut  panels  whose  records 
far  antedate  the  days  of  Roman  supremacy. 
Ashur-nasir-pal,  Shalmaneser,  Tiglath-pileser,  Sen- 
nacherib, Esarhaddon,  Rameses  —  such  are  the 
strange  sounding  names  given  to  the  forms  in  bas- 
relief  which  still  lift  above  the  rushing  stream  the 
scepters  of  their  long-vanished  power.  The  boast- 
ings of  Greek  and  Arabic  conquerors  are  also  found 
along  this  path  of  ancient  armies  and  —  what  seems 
in  such  surroundings  a  weak  anti-climax  —  upon  a 
panel  which  originally  bore  one  of  the  Egyptian  in- 
scriptions now  appears  the  record  of  the  French  ex- 
pedition of  1860. 

Four  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Dog  River,  its 
principal  tributary  bursts  from  a  cave  which  extends 

[34] 


THE    CITY    OF   SATURN 


far  into  the  heart  of  Lebanon.  Within  this  are 
found  stalactites  of  every  shape  and  color,  natural 
columns  as  large  and  almost  as  symmetrical  as  those 
of  the  Parthenon,  enormous  cathedral-like  chambers, 
labyrinthine  passages  without  number,  deep  icy 
pools,  and  cascades  whose  dull  thunder  reverberates 
through  the  dark  depths  of  the  mountain.  With  the 
aid  of  portable  rafts,  adventurous  explorers  have 
penetrated  this  wonderful  cavern  for  nearly  a  mile ; 
but  at  that  distance  there  was  no  diminution  of  the 
volume  of  the  stream  or  any  other  indication  that 
they  had  come  at  all  near  to  the  source  of  the  mys- 
terious underground  river.  The  light  of  their 
torches  but  dimly  revealed  the  roaring  torrent  cease- 
lessly speeding  out  from  dark,  distant  channels  like 
those 

"  Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran 
Through  caverns  measureless  to  man 
Down  to  a  sunless  sea." 

Although  the  Bay  of  Beirut  opens  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean at  an  obtuse  angle,  it  is  so  well  protected  from 
storms  by  the  long  cape  that  it  provides  the  safest 
anchorage  between  Port  Said  and  Smyrna.  I  re- 
member only  one  tempest  which  blew  so  strongly  that 
anchors  could  not  hold  and  steamers  had  to  leave  the 
port  for  the  open  sea.  The  harbor  is  crowded  with 
shipping  of  all  sizes  and  shapes,  from  the  little  coast- 
wise barks  and  the  queer,  low  Egyptian  boats  with 

[351 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

their  one  triangular  sail  to  the  great  transatlantic 
liners  which  bring  multitudes  of  tourists  on  cruises 
to  the  Holy  Land.  About  four  thousand  merchant 
vessels  clear  the  port  annually.  Since  the  dawn  of 
history,  Damascus  has  sent  its  exports  hither  by  the 
ancient  caravan  road.  For  the  past  eighteen  years 
there  has  been  a  railway  across  the  mountains,  and 
its  recently  completed  branch  to  Aleppo  will  doubt- 
less attract  more  and  more  of  the  trade  of  northern 
Syria. 

The  exports  from  Beirut  amount  each  year  to  over 
$4,000,000.  About  one-third  of  this  value  is  made 
up  of  raw  silk ;  other  important  commodities  are 
olive  oil,  licorice  and  fruit.  The  character  of  the 
chief  imports  is  determined  by  the  fact  that  the 
mountains  are  almost  denuded  of  large  forest  trees. 
Immense  quantities  of  timber,  metal  girders,  fire- 
wood and  petroleum  must  therefore  be  brought  from 
abroad.  The  dependence  of  Syria  upon  other 
countries  for  the  materials  used  in  modern  construc- 
tion was  illustrated  in  the  building  of  the  American 
Girls'  School  in  Beirut.  The  lumber  came  from 
Maine,  the  doors  and  windows  from  Massachusetts, 
the  desks  and  chairs  from  New  York,  the  clay  tiles 
from  France,  the  zinc  roof  of  the  cupola  from  Eng- 
land, and  the  glass  from  Austria. 

The  cream-colored  sandstone  for  this  and  a  multi- 
tude of  other  structures  was,  however,  quarried  near 
Beirut.  The  stone  makes  a  fine  building  material, 

[36] 


THE    CITY    OF    SATURN 


as  it  is  easily  worked,  attractive  in  appearance  and 
very  durable.  But  unfortunately  it  is  at  first  quite 
porous,  and  newly-erected  houses  are  dangerously 
damp  until  the  rains  of  two  or  three  winters  have,  on 
their  way  through  the  walls,  first  dissolved  a  certain 
amount  of  the  stone  and  then  deposited  it  in  the  in- 
terstices. So  the  Syrian  proverb  says,  "  When  you 
build  a  house,  rent  it  the  first  year  to  your  enemy, 
the  second  year  to  your  friend,  and  the  third  year 
move  into  it  yourself." 

The  traveler  who  journeys  to  Beirut  from  the 
west  is  naturally  impressed  by  its  scenes  of  Oriental 
life;  but  to  one  who  has  come  hither  from  Lebanon 
or  Damascus  or  even  from  Jerusalem,  it  seems  al- 
most a  European  city.  Here  is  a  French  gas  com- 
pany, an  English  waterworks,  a  German  hospital  and 
an  American  college ;  here  are  post  and  telegraph  of- 
fices, a  harbor  filled  with  shipping,  and  the  terminus 
of  a  busy  railway  system.  Four  lines  of  electric 
tram-cars  furnish  quick  transportation  through  the 
main  streets  to  the  attractive  suburbs,  and  many  of 
the  wealthier  residents  possess  automobiles.  A  score 
of  printing-presses  are  at  work  and  daily  newspa- 
pers are  sold  by  shouting  newsboys.  There  are  a 
dozen  good  hotels ;  and  well-equipped  stores,  run  on 
European  lines,  are  rapidly  crowding  out  the  tiny 
shops  of  the  typical  Oriental  merchant.  Gaudy  bill- 
boards extol  the  virtues  of  French  cosmetics,  English 
insurance  companies  and  American  sewing  machines, 

[37] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

phonographs  and  shoes,  or  announce  the  subjects  of 
the  moving-picture  dramas  for  the  coming  week. 
Carriages  throng  the  principal  thoroughfares,  the 
better  class  of  citizens  wear  European  costumes,  and 
no  passenger-steamship  drops  anchor  in  the  harbor 
without  being  met  by  the  red-shirted  boatmen  and 
suave  interpreters  of  the  enterprising  tourist-agen- 
cies. 

To  the  casual  visitor,  Beirut  seems  therefore  a  very 
peaceable,  matter-of-fact  place.  He  does  not  expe- 
rience the  feeling  of  half-confessed  uneasiness  which 
marked  his  strolls  through  the  native  quarters  of 
other  Oriental  cities.  Yet  the  busy  every-day  life 
of  the  seaport  moves  upon  the  thin  crust  of  a  seething 
volcano  of  hate,  which  all  too  often  breaks  out  into 
murderous  rage. 

The  Moslem  inhabitants  are,  of  course,  backed 
by  all  the  power  of  the  government,  legal  and  illegal ; 
but  they  are  much  inferior  in  numbers  and  in  wealth 
to  the  Christian  population.  Religious  jealousy  is 
therefore  never  far  from  the  boiling-point.  Any  in- 
sult or  violence  offered  by  an  adherent  of  the  one 
faith  to  a  believer  in  the  other  is  the  signal  for  a  long 
series  of  reprisals  and  counter-reprisals,  and  there  is 
always  the  possibility  that  these  may  culminate  in 
general  rioting  and  massacre. 

The  morning  I  first  landed  in  Beirut,  the  Christian 
watchman  of  the  American  Press  was  found  almost 
literally  cut  in  pieces.  The  assassin  was  absolutely 

[38] 


THE   CITY    OF   SATURN 


identified  by  the  print  of  his  bare  foot  in  a  mass  of 
soft  mortar;  but,  being  a  Moslem,  the  authorities 
quickly  released  him  and,  without  any  evidence  what- 
ever, arrested  a  near  relative  of  the  dead  man.  The 
poor  fellow  had  a  perfect  alibi,  yet  he  was  kept  in 
prison  until  the  family  signified  their  willingness  to 
have  the  police  department  refrain  from  any  further 
investigation  of  the  murder.  This  is  a  favorite 
method  of  procedure  when  a  Moslem  is  guilty  of  a 
crime  against  a  Christian. 

It  used  to  be  a  rare  week  that  we  heard  of  no  as- 
sassinations, and  a  rarer  year  that  knew  no  general 
rioting.  One  winter  there  was  a  murder  each  night 
for  six  weeks,  Christians  and  Moslems  being  killed 
alternately.  So  regular  was  the  succession  of  repris- 
als that  a  friend  whom  I  had  invited  to  make  an 
evening  visit  with  me  postponed  the  trip  on  the 
ground  that  "  this  is  the  night  for  a  Christian  to  be 
killed."  Frequent  rumors  would  reach  us  of  impend- 
ing invasions  of  the  Christian  Quarter  by  Moslem 
mobs,  and  more  than  once  the  portentous  war-cry 
of  Dm!  Din  Mohammed!  — "  The  Faith !  The  Faith 
of  Mohammed !  " —  rang  in  the  ears  of  the  terrified 
Christians.  The  morning  I  ended  my  residence  in 
Beirut  it  was  a  prominent  Moslem  who  was  assassi- 
nated at  the  door  of  his  own  home.  A  few  days  aft- 
erwards, murderous  mobs  swept  through  the  city 
chanting,  "  Oh,  how  sweet;  oh,  how  joyful  to  cut  the 
Christians'  throats !  "  The  empty  cartridges  picked 

[39] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

up  after  the  slaughter  were  of  the  make  imported 
exclusively  for  the  use  of  the  Turkish  soldiers  at  the 
government  barracks. 

The  undying  religious  hatred  and  frequent  vio- 
lence do  not,  however,  endanger  the  lives  of  European 
or  American  residents,  and  probably  never  will  do  so 
unless  some  insane  mob  should  get  quite  beyond  the 
control  of  its  leaders.  Islam  has  learned  the  power 
of  foreign  warships.  It  should  also  be  added  that 
the  native  Protestants  are  hardly  ever  molested,  save 
by  accident,  during  these  internecine  conflicts;  for 
the  Moslems  realize  that  this  portion  of  the  popula- 
tion never  takes  any  part  in  religious  strife.  Even 
in  the  terrible  summer  of  I860,  when  all  Syria  was 
drenched  with  blood,  only  nine  Protestants  were 
killed. 

During  the  past  few  months  there  has  developed  a 
new  and  unexpected  phase  of  Beirut  strife.  Since 
the  revolution  of  the  Young  Turks,  a  vigorous  de- 
mand for  political  righteousness  and  even-handed  jus- 
tice has,  in  spite  of  all  set-backs,  been  growing  stead- 
ily among  every  race  and  faith  of  the  empire.  In 
Syria  the  new  ideals  and  hopes  found  expression  in 
the  organization  of  a  "  Committee  of  Reform,"  which 
demanded  such  elemental  rights  as  the  appointment 
of  an  Arabic-speaking  governor  of  Beirut  and  the  use 
of  the  vernacular  in  the  courts  of  justice.  Up  to  the 
present  time,  the  governor  has  always  been  a  Turk, 
and  Turkish  judges  have  understood  the  language  of 

[40] 


THE    CITY    OF    SATURN 


bribery  better  than  the  Arabic  pleas  of  poor  men 
who  appeared  before  them. 

Last  spring  the  differences  between  the  people  of 
Beirut  and  the  government  became  so  acute  that  the 
city  was  put  under  martial  law  by  the  pasha,  who 
also  issued  a  proclamation  dissolving  the  local  branch 
of  the  Reform  Committee  and  forbidding  further 
gatherings  of  the  citizens  or  discussion  in  the  public 
press.  Every  newspaper  of  the  city  protested 
against  these  despotic  acts  by  printing  an  issue 
which  was  absolutely  blank,  save  that  in  the  center 
of  the  first  page  there  appeared  the  odious  procla- 
mation. Since  then  the  governor  has  been  recalled 
and,  on  the  surface,  the  city  is  more  quiet.  But  the 
startling,  unhoped-for  feature  of  this  latest  contest 
is  that  —  for  the  first  time  in  the  sanguinary  history 
of  Beirut  —  Moslems  and  Christians  and  Jews  have 
for  the  moment  put  aside  their  ancient  feuds,  that 
they  might  present  a  united  front  to  the  aggressions 
of  the  tyrannical  local  government.  This  spirit 
of  union,  even  more  than  the  desire  for  political  re- 
form which  gave  it  birth,  promises  a  new  era  of  peace 
and  prosperity  for  the  most  progressive  city  of  beau- 
tiful, blood-stained  Syria. 

As  has  been  said,  however,  the  ordinary  traveler 
sees  no  evidences  of  strife  in  the  streets  of  Beirut. 
The  largest  and  most  conspicuous  class  of  people 
whom  he  meets  are  not  assassins  or  revolutionists, 
but  students.  This  is  no  new  thing,  for  the  city  'has 

[41] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

long  been  famous  as  a  seat  of  learning.  From  the 
third  to  the  sixth  centuries  A.  D.,  its  law  school  was 
the  greatest  in  the  Roman  Empire,  excelling  even 
that  of  the  capital  and  numbering  its  students  by 
the  thousand.  One  of  the  three  commissioners  who 
prepared  the  Institutes  of  Justinian  was  Professor 
Dorotheus  of  Beirut.  In  the  early  Saracen  centu- 
ries, also,  the  city  attained  much  scholarly  fame  and 
sent  forth  many  of  the  foremost  authorities  on  Mos- 
lem law  and  doctrine. 

At  the  present  day  it  is  the  greatest  educational 
center  in  the  Near  East.  Besides  the  schools  main- 
tained by  each  of  the  native  churches  and  the  mosque- 
schools  and  government  academies,  and  institutions 
supported  —  presumably  for  political  reasons  — 
by  Italy  and  Russia,  there  are  schools  or  colleges  of 
the  French  Sisters  of  Charity,  Sisters  of  the  Holy 
Family,  Ladies  of  Nazareth,  Lazarists,  Franciscans, 
Capuchins  and  Jesuits,  the  German  Deaconesses  of 
Kaiserswerth,  the  British  Syrian  Mission,  the 
Church  of  Scotland  Mission  to  the  Jews,  and  the 
American  Presbyterian  Mission,  not  to  mention  a 
number  of  others  which  have  been  organized  by  pri- 
vate individuals  of  missionary  and  philanthropic 
spirit.  The  total  number  of  students  who  are  being 
educated  along  modern  lines  is  over  twenty  thousand. 

Yet  in  this   city   of  schools   and  colleges,  if  the 
stranger  tells  his  coachman  to  drive  to  el-Kulliyet  — 
"  the  College  " —  he  will  be  taken  without  question  to 


THE   CITY    OF   SATURN 


an  institution  which  is  incorporated  under  the  laws 
of  the  State  of  New  York ;  and  a  short  visit  here  will 
show  why  this  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  college  of 
Beirut.  Upon  a  beautifully  situated  campus  of  fifty 
acres,  twenty  imposing  stone  buildings  house  the 
seven  departments  of  what  is  really  a  large,  well- 
equipped  university  of  eighty  instructors  and  nearly 
a  thousand  students,  with  observatory  and  library 
and  scientific  laboratories  and  hospitals,  as  well  as 
literary,  dramatic,  musical  and  scientific  societies 
and  its  own  printing-press  and  monthly  magazine. 

Many  important  things  are  being  learned  and  done 
at  the  Syrian  Protestant  College ;  but  what  strikes  the 
observant  visitor  as  most  admirable  of  all  is  the  spirit 
of  the  institution,  a  spirit  of  thoroughness  and  man- 
liness and  loyal  fraternity  and  encouraging  opti- 
mism. More  than  anything  else  in  Beirut  —  yes, 
more  than  anything  else  in  western  Asia  —  the  "  S. 
P.  C.,"  as  its  students  and  alumni  call  it,  stands  for 
the  best  gifts  of  Western  civilization  and  for  a  new 
hope  which,  lighted  first  in  beautiful  Syria,  is  al- 
ready beginning  to  shine  on  many  a  land  far  out  of 
sight  of  heavenward-reaching  Lebanon. 


[43] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE     SPIRIT     OF      OLYMPIA 

MOUNT  LEBANON  looks  to-day  upon  such  a 
contest  as  it  has  never  seen  before.  Yet 
Syria  has  witnessed  many  struggles.  From 
the  time  men  first  began  to  fight,  this  land  has  hardly 
had  opportunity  to  learn  what  peace  and  quiet  mean. 
There  are  people  on  the  campus  of  the  American 
College  this  afternoon  who  can  remember  when  the 
slopes  of  the  mountain  ran  with  blood ;  some  of  the 
best  sprinters  know  what  it  is  to  flee  for  their  lives, 
and  even  this  week  there  has  been  killing  on  the 
streets  of  Beirut. 

The  contest  to-day,  however,  is  a  new  thing  under 
the  Syrian  sun.  It  is  not  the  first  time  that  athletic 
games  have  been  held  —  there  was  a  field-day  as  far 
back  as  1898  —  but  this  time  the  preparations  have 
been  of  an  unusual  character.  During  the  whole 
week,  men  have  been  busy  rolling  and  marking  the 
track  and  removing  every  stick  and  pebble  from  the 
football  field.  The  classrooms  have  been  emptied  of 
all  their  chairs  and  benches,  and  the  faculty  commit- 
tee has  erected  four  grand  stands,  seating  over  a 
thousand  people.  These  will  not  begin  to  accommo- 

[44] 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    OLYMPIA 

date  all  the  spectators,  however,  and  students  living 
in  dormitories  that  front  on  the  athletic  field  find  that 
they  have  suddenly  become  very  popular  among  the 
ladies  of  the  city. 

The  football  teams  have  ordered  sweaters  and  shin- 
guards  from  England,  and  the  Beirut  tailors  have 
been  puzzling  their  brains  over  queerly  shaped  gar- 
ments for  the  sprinters.  The  medals  on  exhibition 
in  the  college  library  were  struck  in  Boston  espe- 
cially for  this  occasion,  and  bear  on  their  faces  the 
college  emblem,  a  cedar  of  Lebanon.  Besides  the 
prizes  for  each  event,  the  American  consul  will  give 
a  gold  medal  to  the  champion  all-round  athlete. 
Best  of  all,  the  governor  of  Lebanon  has  promised  to 
attend  and  has  sent  his  famous  military  band  to 
provide  the  afternoon's  music.  When  to  these  vari- 
ous good  things  is  added  the  glory  of  a  Syrian  spring- 
time, and  a  campus  set  high  on  a  bluff  overlooking 
the  blue  Mediterranean,  with  Mount  Lebanon  rais- 
ing its  snow-capped  summits  high  in  the  background, 
it  is  an  occasion  and  a  setting  to  quicken  the  slowest 
pulse. 

To-day  is  so  full  of  excitement,  however,  that  no- 
body thinks  very  much  of  anything  outside  the  ath- 
letic field.  The  governor's  band  has  come  early, 
with  all  kinds  of  instruments,  especially  those  which 
make  a  very  loud  noise.  A  tent  has  been  erected  for 
them  in  the  center  of  the  field,  and  over  the  tent  is  a 
little  American  flag.  The  East  is  always  so  incom- 

[45] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

prehensible  and  contradictory  that  it  occasions  no 
particular  surprise  that  a  Syrian  military  band 
should  be  playing  Sousa  marches  under  the  American 
colors. 

But  it  looks  as  if  we  had  at  last  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing the  East  hustle  a  little.  All  Beirut  seems  to  be 
crowding  into  the  campus.  It  is  almost  a  part  of 
his  religion  for  an  Oriental  never  to  do  anything  on 
time ;  yet  the  grand  stands  are  already  full,  and  the 
soldiers  stationed  at  the  gate-house  can  hardly  hold 
the  crowds  back  long  enough  for  the  porter  to  col- 
lect their  tickets.  The  scene  is  dazzling,  dizzying, 
bewildering,  like  Coney  Island  and  the  Derby  and  the 
Yale-Princeton  game  all  jumbled  together. 

There  must  be  at  least  five  thousand  strangers  on 
the  college  grounds,  and  every  color  of  the  spectrum 
is  here,  especially  the  very  brilliant  ones.  The  mili- 
tary band,  with  their  blue  uniforms  and  red  fezes, 
seem  almost  shabby  and  dull  in  comparison  with  the 
more  garish  coloring  all  around  them.  The  seats  are 
mostly  filled  with  women,  whose  showy  dresses  are 
hideous  individually  and  beautiful  as  part  of  the  gen- 
eral color  scheme.  Moslem  harems  are  here  with 
their  weird  veils,  and  there  are  many  pretty  Levan- 
tines in  rich,  inappropriate  silks  and  satins.  In 
Syria,  however,  the  ladies  do  not  monopolize  the 
bright  garments.  Handsome  young  Turkish  officers 
swagger  along  under  yards  of  gold  lace,  merchants 
from  the  city  are  wearing  their  best  and  baggiest 

[46] 


THE   SPIRIT    OF   OLYMPIA 

satin  trousers  and  embroidered  waistcoats  and  broad 
silk  sashes,  while  the  sons  of  Egyptian  millionaires 
sport  the  elegantly  fitting  coats  and  tinted  vests 
which  now  form  the  favorite  costume  of  the  streets 
of  Cairo.  The  color  spreads  over  the  field  and  up 
the  grand  stands,  with  bright  splashes  along  the  sides 
of  the  dormitories.  Long  strips  of  red  and  white 
bunting  flaunt  the  college  colors ;  American  and  Brit- 
ish and  Greek  and  Turkish  flags  wave  above,  and  the 
students'  windows  are  decorated  with  their  national 
emblems  or  class  banners. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  an  American  tutor,  while 
ushering  the  women  of  a  Moslem  harem  across  the 
campus,  suggested,  in  rather  labored  Arabic,  that 
they  pass  around  the  back  of  one  of  the  dormitories 
so  as  to  avoid  the  crowd.  Imagine  his  surprise  and 
consternation  when  one  of  the  ladies  replied,  "  No, 
thank  you ;  I'd  rather  go  around  in  front " —  and 
said  it  in  perfect  English,  with  just  a  suspicion  of 
a  Yankee  twang!  Who  was  hidden  behind  that 
black  veil?  What  foolish,  tragic  venture  had 
brought  it  about  that  an  American  girl  should  dAvell 
behind  the  latticed  windows  of  a  Moslem  seraglio? 

But  the  students  have  no  intention  of  being  ob- 
scured by  their  guests.  They  are  out  a  thousand 
strong,  with  their  best  clothes  and  their  loudest 
voices.  They  represent  every  race  and  tongue  and 
faith  of  the  Near  East,  with  here  and  there  a  stranger 
from  Europe  or  South  America.  At  first  thought, 

[47] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

it  seems  as  though  they  could  never  be  amalgamated, 
even  for  an  afternoon.  Here,  for  example,  are  a 
dozen  names,  representing  as  many  nationalities ; 
Hafiz  Abd-ul-Malik,  Neshan  Hamyartsumian,  Ah- 
med Zeki,  Basileios  Theodoropolous,  Tahir  Huseini, 
Carlos  d'Oliveira,  Aldo  Villa,  Mordecai  Elstein,  Em- 
manuel Mattsson,  Joseph  Miklasievicz,  Eugene 
Faure,  Emile  Kirchner.  As  to  religion,  they  are 
Moslems,  Jews,  Druses,  Babites,  and  Christians  of 
every  sect.  Some  of  the  languages  they  speak  are 
Arabic,  Turkish,  Armenian,  Chaldean,  Persian, 
Greek,  Yiddish,  English,  Swedish,  Bulgarian,  Abys- 
sinian, Italian,  German,  French,  Portuguese,  Span- 
ish, Polish  and  Russian.  As  to  geographical  distri- 
bution, they  come  from  the  Balkans  in  the  north  and 
from  Baghdad,  forty  days'  journey  to  the  east;  from 
a  thousand  miles  up  the  Nile,  and  from  New  York 
and  Brazil  in  the  west. 

Probably  no  other  institution  in  the  world  includes 
such  a  mixture  of  antagonistic  peoples  and  religions, 
and,  until  quite  recently,  the  members  of  each  of  the 
more  largely  represented  races  kept  closely  together. 
It  used  to  be  seldom  that  a  Jew,  for  instance,  asso- 
ciated with  an  Armenian  outside  of  class  hours.  In 
the  evenings  the  Greek  students  would  gather  in  one 
another's  rooms,  or  march  around  the  campus  arm 
in  arm,  singing  their  national  songs.  The  Egyp- 
tians, most  of  whom  were  of  very  wealthy  families, 
promenaded  together,  discussing  the  fleshpots  of 

[48] 


THE   SPIRIT    OF    OLYMPIA 

Cairo.  Even  among  the  Syrians,  who  have  always 
formed  the  majority  of  the  student  body,  there  were 
lines  of  division  between  the  men  from  Tripoli  in  the 
north  and  from  Sidon  or  Jedeideh  in  the  south.  If 
these  groups  are  considered  as  being  separated  by 
latitudinal  lines,  there  were  also  the  longitudinal  di- 
visions between  Christian  and  Moslem  and  Jew;  and 
sometimes  long-cherished  feuds  broke  into  flame  and 
pitched  battles  took  place  on  the  campus. 

Not  the  least  benefit  arising  from  the  introduction 
of  American  athletic  sports  has  been  a  weakening  of 
these  ancient  racial  and  religious  barriers.  The  an- 
tagonisms still  exist,  strong  and  danger-breeding; 
but  there  has  been  a  large  advance  made  toward  a 
more  catholic  college  spirit.  It  would  not  be  true 
to  say  that  athletics  has  been  the  only  cause,  or  even 
the  chief  cause  of  this  change;  for  by  precept  and 
example,  by  religious  instruction  and  social  inter- 
course, the  faculty  are  continually  molding  the  char- 
acters of  these  young  men.  Yet  it  is  true  that  in 
the  case  of  more  than  one  recalcitrant  student  whom 
no  other  influence  seemed  able  to  touch,  the  latent 
manliness  has  been  brought  out  through  his  newly 
awakened  interest  in  sports. 

Most  Orientals  are  very  averse  to  physical  exer- 
cise. Their  traditional  idea  of  enjoyment  is  to  sit 
under  an  awning,  drinking  coffee  and  playing  back- 
gammon. That  a  man  should  go  out  and  run 
around  a  track  in  shameless  nakedness,  and  this 

[49] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

with  no  hope  of  gain,  only  strengthens  their  conclu- 
sion that  all  Franks  are  mad.  The  Syrians  are  an 
imitative  people,  however,  and  some  years  ago  the  in- 
fluence of  the  younger  instructors  tempted  a  few 
of  the  preparatory  boys  out  for  foot-races.  But 
you  cannot  run  a  hundred-yard  dash  with  long, 
baggy  trousers  and  a  silk  robe  which  flops  about 
your  ankles.  Even  if  you  "  gird  up  the  loins  "  by 
tucking  your  skirts  into  your  sash,  the  effect  is  more 
startling  than  speedy.  Soon,  one  by  one,  the  stu- 
dents ordered  trousers  from  the  city  tailors.  At 
first  these  garments  were  poorly  cut  and  viewed  with 
suspicion ;  but  to-day  there  are  hardly  three  men  in 
the  academic  and  graduate  departments  who  wear 
the  native  costume  outside  of  their  rooms,  and  many 
of  the  students  dress  with  an  elegance  that  their  pro- 
fessors cannot  afford  to  emulate. 

It  was  football,  however,  that  did  the  most  toward 
unification  of  the  heterogeneous  student  body.  The 
value  of  team-work  is  a  comparatively  new  idea  to 
western  Asia  and  eastern  Europe.  Since  the  days  of 
Alcibiades  and  Absalom  the  old  ideal  has  been  that 
of  "  every  man  for  himself."  If  it  had  not  been  so, 
the  history  of  the  world  might  have  been  different. 
It  was  comparatively  easy  to  understand  the  joy  of 
winning  a  foot-race  or  a  tennis  tournament ;  but  to 
play  an  untheatrical  part  in  a  match,  obeying  the 
captain  and  working  for  the  good  of  the  team  — 
that  was  a  very  different  thing.  The  students  al- 

[50] 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    OLYMPIA 

ways  play  the  association  game,  and  it  used  to  be 
the  ambition  of  every  youth  to  get  the  ball,  and  carry 
it  down  the  field  all  by  himself,  while  the  audience 
cheered,  "  Bravo,  bravo !  "  So  the  faculty  arranged 
matches  with  the  crews  of  visiting  British  warships, 
and  from  sad  experience  the  college  learned  the  value 
of  side  plays  and  frequent  passes,  and  began  to  see 
dimly  that  good  football  is  played,  not  with  the  legs 
and  mouth  alone,  but  with  the  head,  and  that  hard 
team-work  is  better  than  grand  stand  exploits.1 
That  lesson  may  some  day  change  the  map  of 
Asia. 

The  physical  director  of  the  college  now  has  under 
his  charge  no  fewer  than  eighteen  football  teams, 
besides  twelve  basketball  teams,  six  hockey  teams, 
four  baseball  teams  and  a  cross-country  running  club  ; 
thirty  men  play  at  cricket  regularly,  forty-seven 
hold  certificates  or  medals  of  the  (British)  Royal 
Life  Saving  Society,  and  there  are  a  hundred  and 
thirty-five  entries  for  to-day's  field  and  track  events.2 

It  makes  one  homesick  to  hear  the  cheers.  With 
the  exception  of  an  occasional  "  meet  "  with  some 
mission  school,  like  those  at  Jerusalem  and  Sidon, 
there  is  no  opportunity  to  compete  with  rival  institu- 

1  In   1913,  the  college  team  defeated  the  champions   of  the 
British  Mediterranean  Fleet. 

2  The  above  figures   are  for  the  current  year,   1913.    With 
this  exception,  however,  the  chapter  is  not  in  any  sense  a  com- 
posite, but   describes   the  happenings   of  one   actual  field-day 
held  during  the  author's  residence  in  Beirut. 

[51] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

tions.  Indeed,  there  is  no  other  college  in  the  Near 
East  which  would  have  any  chance  of  winning  in  com- 
petition with  the  "  S.  P.  C."  So  the  enthusiasm  finds 
a  vent  in  cheering  for  the  various  schools  of  the  uni- 
versity and  for  the  class  champions.  Three  of  the  de- 
partments —  the  preparatory,  academic  and  medical 
—  are  each  as  large  as  many  an  American  col- 
lege. The  competition  among  these  runs  very  high, 
and,  to-day  a  banner  is  to  be  given  to  the  one  whose 
members  shall  score  most  points.  Now  the  various 
department  "  yells  "  have  stopped  for  a  moment,  and 
an  upper  classman  starts  the  college  cheer,  just  as 
inane  to  read  and  just  as  soul-stirring  to  hear  as  are 
those  of  Harvard  or  Yale  or  Princeton.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  singing,  too.  The  college  song,  like 
that  of  Cornell,  is  set  to  the  tune  of  "  Annie  Lisle," 
but  the  words  are  full  of  local  allusions  — 

"  Far,  far  above  the  waters 

Of  the  deep  blue  sea, 
Lies  the  campus  of  the  college 
Where  we  love  to  be. 

"  Far  away,  behold  Keneiseh ! 

Far  beyond,  Sunnin ! 
Rising  hoary  to  the  heavens, 
Clad  in  glorious   sheen." 

Suddenly  an  usher  comes  running  from  the  gate- 
house with  the  news  that  the  governor's  carriage  is 
in  sight.  It  can  hardly  be  true,  however ;  for  it  still 

[52] 


THE   SPIRIT    OF   OLYMPIA 

lacks  a  few  minutes  of  two  o'clock,  and  it  would  be 
contrary  to  Syrian  custom  for  an  official  of  such 
exalted  rank  to  arrive  at  the  same  time  with  ordinary 
people.  Probably  he  will  come  at  about  three 
o'clock,  and  stay  a  half  hour  or  so,  just  to  assure  the 
college  of  his  good-will.  Indeed,  this  will  be  the  first 
time  that  a  governor  has  even  put  in  an  appearance 
at  the  annual  games.  But,  after  all,  the  usher  is 
right.  The  pasha  is  coming  —  three  minutes  ahead 
of  time !  There  is  hardly  a  consul  on  the  dignitaries' 
platform;  even  the  American  representative  has  not 
arrived  yet,  and  there  would  be  no  one  properly  to 
welcome  the  governor,  if  the  president  of  the  college 
did  not  throw  dignity  to  the  winds  and  sprint  across 
the  campus  to  meet  him. 

The  escort  rides  in  at  a  slow  canter,  with  sabers 
glistening  and  accouterments  clattering.  First 
come  young  officers,  handsome  and  foppish,  their  bos- 
oms heavy  with  gold  lace  and  medals,  and  their  Arab 
stallions  snorting  and  prancing;  then  follows  the 
guard  of  grizzled,  sunburned  Lebanon  soldiers, 
clothed  in  blue  Zo  lave  uniforms  and  holding  repeat- 
ing-rifles  across  the  pommels  of  their  saddles.  Be- 
hind the  soldiers  are  carriages  containing  the  mem- 
bers of  the  staff  and  their  ladies ;  and  last  of  all,  at- 
tended by  out-riders,  the  carriage  of  his  excellency. 
The  pasha  is  a  thin  little  old  man  with  a  gray  beard 
and  shrewd,  tired  eyes;  and,  in  striking  contrast  to 
his  gayly  caparisoned  escort,  he  is  quietly  dressed  in 

[53] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

a  dark  business  suit.  He  is  a  Pole  by  birth,  a  Roman 
Catholic  by  religion,  a  Turkish  soldier  by  profession, 
and  a  gentleman  by  instinct  and  breeding.  A  son  of 
the  governor  is  also  here.  He  is  an  attache  of  the 
Turkish  embassy  at  Paris,  and  one  would  take  him 
for  a  cultured  Frenchman.  The  wife  of  the  attache 
is  a  young  American  woman,  a  member  of  one  of  our 
best-known  and  wealthiest  New  York  families. 

Among  the  other  guests  in  the  seats  of  honor  are  a 
Greek  priest,  a  Moslem  mollah  and  a  Druse  emir. 
The  senior  missionary  is  telling  the  professor  of 
philosophy  how  Yale  used  to  play  football  back  in 
the  fifties,  while  the  lady  of  the  German  consul  is 
talking  babies  to.  the  senior  missionary's  wife.  The 
Welsh  doctor,  who  used  to  live  in  Brazil,  is  talking 
French  to  the  Italian  professor  from  Cairo.  The 
exporter  of  Damascus  rugs  is  swapping  Dakota  sto- 
ries with  the  Syrian  editor  who  took  the  Arab  troupe 
to  the  Chicago  Exposition. 

And  in  the  middle  of  the  field  the  official  announcer 
is  lifting  up  a  megaphone  to  shout  across  the  babel 
of  tongues : — 

"  Winner  of  the  dromedary  race,  Saladin ;  second, 
Haroun  al  Raschid;  third,  Sinbad.  The  next  event 
will  be  the  high  jump  on  enchanted  carpets !  " 

At  least,  that  is  what  one  would  expect  to  hear 
amid  this  brilliant  theatrical  setting.  But  instead 
the  call  comes  in  faultless  English  — 

"  All  out  for  the  hundred-yard  dash !  " 
[54] 


THE   SPIRIT    OF   OLYMPIA 

In  the  finals  of  this  race  there  are  four  men;  a 
Greek,  an  Egyptian  and  two  Syrians.  Khalil  Mes- 
haqah,  of  the  medical  school,  wins  in  ten  and  two- 
fifth  seconds,  without  spikes,  and  on  a  dirt  track  3 
without  guiding  ropes.  The  college  is  not  ashamed 
of  its  athletic  records.  Among  its  prize  winners  this 
afternoon  are  the  best  jumper  of  the  Island  of  Cy- 
prus, the  champion  swimmer  of  Alexandria,  and  the 
Greek  who  won  the  hundred-meter  race  in  the  recent 
Pan-Hellenic  Games  at  Athens.  On  the  first  few 
field-days  the  Greeks  carried  everything  before  them ; 
indeed,  on  one  occasion  three  Greeks  from  Cyprus 
made  more  points  than  all  the  other  students  com- 
bined. Now,  however,  after  only  a  few  years  of 
training,  some  splendid  athletes  are  being  developed 
among  the  Syrians,  Armenians  and  Egyptians.  Of 
the  six  men  who  win  most  points  to-day,  four  are 
Syrians,  one  is  a  Greek  and  one  is  a  Scotchman. 

The  announcer  comes  out  again  into  the  center  of 
the  field  and  shouts  through  his  megaphone,  first 
in  English  and  then  in  Arabic  — 

"  The  discus  has  just  been  thrown  one  hundred 
and  ten  feet,  breaking  the  college  record ! " 

So  the  campus  bursts  into  a  new  uproar  of  shout- 
ing and  singing,  and  the  students  make  quite  un- 
necessary inquiries  as  to  "  What's  the  matter  with 
McLaughlan  ? "  while  somebody  tries  to  explain 

s  Since  this  record  was  made,  a  new  athletic  field  with  a 
cinder  track  has  been  laid  out  adjoining  the  campus. 

[55] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

what  it  is  all  about  to  the  Turkish  governor,  who 
understands  neither  English  nor  Arabic,  and  the 
governor's  daughter-in-law  looks  as  if  she  were  think- 
ing of  Travers  Island. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  describe  all  the  events 
of  the  day :  how  Nedrah  Meshaqah  wins  the  thousand- 
yard  "  campus  race,"  how  latrou  keeps  the  shot- 
put  in  the  Greek  ranks,  or  how  Bedr  breaks  the 
record  for  the  high  jump.  The  real  significance  of 
the  occasion  is  that  it  is  all  so  like  the  field-meets  of 
our  American  colleges  at  home. 

The  only  typically  Syrian  event  is  the  jareed- 
throw  —  and  the  javelin  has  since  been  included 
among  American  field-events.  The  jareed  is  a  blunt 
dart  about  four  feet  long  and  an  inch  in  diameter, 
and  it  is  always  thrown  underhand.  The  Arabs 
use  it  in  various  games,  somewhat  as  the  old  Greeks 
employed  the  javelin.  At  the  college  it  is  thrown 
for  distance ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
contests,  as  it  requires  not  only  strength  and  quick- 
ness but  a  peculiar  knack  which  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible for  a  foreigner  to  learn.  It  looks  very  easy 
to  one  who  has  tossed  baseballs  all  his  life ;  yet  when 
the  American  first  attempts  to  throw  the  short,  light 
stick,  he  sends  it  whirling  around  like  a  windmill. 
But  watch  that  young  Druse  sheikh,  as  he  carefully 
balances  the  jareed  upon  his  finger,  and  then  grasps 
it  gently  but  firmly  at  the  approved  spot.  A  few 
slow  swings  of  the  arm  to  get  the  direction,  a 

[56] 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    OLYMPIA 

lean  backward  until  the  stick  nearly  touches  the 
ground  behind,  then  a  jump  forward  and  a  throw 
so  long  that  his  hand  moves  fully  nine  feet  in  a 
straight  line  before  it  lets  the  missile  go  with  a  furi- 
ous rifling  motion  —  and  the  jareed  darts  up  and 
off  with  a  queer  little  nervous  twist  like  an  angry 
snake,  and  drops  nearly  two  hundred  feet  away,  with 
a  force  that  would  have  broken  a  man's  skull. 

It  is  a  proud  moment  for  thirty  Eastern  athletes 
when  they  step  up  to  the  platform  where  the  gov- 
ernor and  his  staff  are  sitting,  and  receive  their  med- 
als from  the  Norwegian  wife  of  the  American  consul 
and  the  American  daughter-in-law  of  the  Turkish 
pasha.  Everything  is  over  now  except  the  football 
game,  and  the  governor  has  stayed  through  it  all, 
thus  giving  a  most  signal  mark  of  his  interest  and  ap- 
proval. He  indicates  his  wish  to  retire,  and  the 
crowd  gives  way  for  his  escort.  The  carriages  drive 
up  to  the  grand  stand  with  much  snapping  of  whips, 
and  the  outriders  prance  gayly  around  on  their  rest- 
ive Ara'bs.  But  just  then  the  football  teams  run  out 
into  the  field,  resplendent  in  their  new  uniforms ;  and 
the  governor  repents  of  his  decision  to  leave,  sinks 
back  into  his  seat  and  motions  the  carriages  to  drive 
away. 

The  captain  of  the  medical  team  is  a  great,  bearded 
Syrian,  six  feet  tall.  The  captain  of  the  collegiate 
eleven  is  two  inches  taller,  also  a  Syrian  in  name  and 
very  proud  of  his  country  and  race,  but  with  a  sense 

[57] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

of  humor  and  a  knowledge  of  team-work  which  he 
probably  inherited  from  his  American  mother.  One 
of  the  full-backs  is  a  very  sturdy  fellow  who  was 
born  in  Cyprus  of  a  French  mother  and  speaks  Greek 
as  his  native  tongue ;  but  there  is  a  canny  twinkle  in 
his  eye  and  a  burr  in  his  speech  which  make  it  seem 
quite  natural  that  his  name  should  begin  with  "  Mac." 
Many  brilliant  plays  are  made  by  the  son  of  an 
Egyptian  millionaire,  the  Druse  sheikh  who  won  the 
jareed  throw,  and  an  American  from  Jerusalem. 
The  collegiate  eleven  is  composed  of  four  Syrians, 
three  Egyptians,  an  Armenian,  a  Scotchman,  an 
American  and  an  Austrian ;  but  racial  and  religious 
differences  are  forgotten  as  they  play  together  for 
the  honor  of  their  side.  It  is  a  hard  game,  yet  a  very 
fair  one,  and  when  the  "  Medics  "  win  by  a  score  of 
two  goals  to  one,  even  the  college  men  lustily  cheer 
the  victors. 

As  the  gay-colored  crowd  breaks  over  the  field,  his 
fellow-students  seize  the  captain  of  the  winning 
team  and  carry  him  around  on  their  shoulders,  sing- 
ing and  shouting  all  the  while.  Medical  banners 
wave,  medical  hats  and  fezes  are  thrown  into  the  air 
and  medical  men  cheer  until  they  can  cheer  no  more. 
Soon  the  other  students  join  in,  and  department  ri- 
valries are  forgotten  in  a  loud  enthusiasm  for  alma 
mater.  At  the  dinner  hour  the  usual  rules  of  de- 
corum are  for  once  relaxed,  and  the  happy  pande- 

[58] 


THE   SPIRIT    OF    OLYMPIA 

monium  continues  until  bedtime.  Then  at  last,  tired 
and  sleepy  and  voiceless,  the  college  settles  down  to 
a  long  rest,  after  the  best  field-day  that  has  ever  been 
held  in  the  Turkish  Empire. 


f59] 


CHAPTER  V 

ACROSS      THE     MOUNTAINS 

RAILWAYS  and  carriage-roads  in  Syria  are 
chiefly  due  to  French  enterprise.  The  So~ 
ciete  Ottomans  des  Chemins  de  Fer  de 
Damas,  Hama  et  Prolongements  has  less  rolling 
stock  than  its  lengthy  name  might  lead  one  to  expect, 
and  its  slow  schedule  is  not  always  observed  with  a 
mechanical  Western  exactness.  Although  Damascus 
is  barely  fifty  miles  from  Beirut,  the  journey  thither 
takes  ten  hours ;  for  the  constantly  curving  railway 
measures  more  than  ninety  miles  and  the  total  rise  of 
its  numerous  steep  grades  is  over  7,000  feet.  This 
single,  narrow-gauge  road,  which  is  carried  over  two 
high  mountain  ranges,  is  an  admirable  example  of 
modern  engineering,  and  the  scenery  through  which 
it  passes  is  a  source  of  unbroken  delight. 

As  we  zig-zag  up  the  western  slope  of  Lebanon 
there  appear,  now  at  our  right  and  now  at  our  left, 
a  succession  of  beautiful  panoramas  which  differ  one 
from  the  other  only  in  revealing  a  constantly  widen- 
ing horizon.  Rich,  populous  valleys,  lying  deep  be- 
tween the  shoulders  of  the  mountains,  slope  quickly 
downward  to  the  coast  where,  farther  and  farther  be- 

[60] 


ACROSS   THE   MOUNTAINS 

low  us,  the  silvery-green  olive  orchards  and  golden 
sands  of  Beirut  reach  out  into  the  ever-broadening 
azure  expanse  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Sometimes  great  masses  of  billowing  clouds  drift 
up  the  valleys,  so  that  for  a  while  we  seem  to  be  trav- 
eling along  a  narrow  isthmus  between  foaming  seas. 
The  people  of  Aleih  —  a  charming  summer  resort 
where  the  mountainside  is  so  steep  that  there  is  no 
room  for  a  curve  and  the  train  has  to  back  up  the 
next  leg  of  the  ascent  —  are  the  butt  of  many  a  pop- 
ular tale.  One  day,  so  the  wits  of  the  neighboring 
villages  relate,  these  foolish  fellows  mistook  the  ris- 
ing tide  of  mist  for  the  sea  itself,  and  the  whole  pop- 
ulace prepared  to  go  fishing. 

Another  time  a  number  of  residents  of  Aleih  went 
to  Beirut  to  buy  shoes.  On  their  way  back  they  all 
sat  on  a  wall  to  rest ;  and  when  they  were  ready  to  go 
on  again,  behold,  the  new  shoes  were  all  exactly  the 
same  size,  shape  and  color,  and  no  man  could  tell 
which  of  the  feet  were  his.  So  there  they  sat,  in  sad 
perplexity  as  to  how  they  should  ever  reach  home, 
until  a  passer-by,  to  whom  they  explained  their  diffi- 
culty, smote  the  shoes  smartly  one  after  the  other 
with  his  stick  and  thus  enabled  each  person  to  recog- 
nize his  own  feet. 

A  third  Aleih  story  also  exemplifies  the  ridiculous 
exaggeration  which  so  delights  a  Syrian  audience. 
It  seems  that  the  only  public  well  in  the  village  used 
to  be  the  subject  of  frequent  quarrels  between  the 

[61] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 


inhabitants  of  the  upper  and  lower  quarters.  So 
finally  the  sheikh  stretched  a  slender  pole  across  the 
middle  of  the  opening  and  commanded  that  thence- 
forth each  of  the  two  opposing  factions  was  to  draw 
only  from  its  own  side.  For  a  time  all  went  peace- 


ably ;  but  one  dark  night  a  zealous  partisan  was  dis- 
covered diligently  at  work  dipping  water  from  the 
farther  side  of  the  pole  and  pouring  it  into  his  half 
of  the  well ! 

Shortly  after  leaving  Aleih,  the  train  turns  straight 
east  and  climbs  with  labored  puffings  up  the  shoulder 
of  Jebel  Keneiseh  to  the  watershed,  4,800  feet  above 

[62] 


ACROSS   THE   MOUNTAINS 

Beirut.  It  is  very  much  cooler  now.  In  midsum- 
mer, refreshing  breezes  blow  down  from  unseen  snow- 
banks among  the  mountaintops.  In  winter  —  if,  in- 
deed, the  traffic  is  not  entirely  blocked  by  drifts 
which  choke  the  railway  cuts  —  the  j  ourney  is  mem- 
orable for  its  piercing,  inescapable  cold,  and  the  na- 
tives who  gather  idly  at  the  stations  wear  heavy 
sheepskin  cloaks  and  keep  their  heads  and  shoulders- 
swathed  in  thick  shawls,  though,  strangely  enough, 
their  legs  may  be  bare  and  their  frost-bitten  feet 
protected  only  by  low  slippers. 

At  last  the  jolting  of  the  rack-and-pinion  ceases, 
the  train  quickens  its  speed,  passes  through  two 
short  tunnels,  swings  around  a  high  embankment; 
and  over  the  crests  of  the  lower  hills  we  see  a  long, 
narrow  stretch  of  level  country,  bordered  on  its  far- 
ther side  by  a  wall-like  line  of  very  steep  mountains. 
The  profile  of  the  "  Eastern  Mountains  " —  as  we 
behold  them  from  this  point  we  can  hardly  avoid  us- 
ing the  Syrian  name  for  Anti-Lebanon  —  seems  al- 
most exactly  horizontal,  and  the  resemblance  of  the 
range  to  a  tremendous  rampart  is  heightened  by  the 
massive  buttresses  which  reach  out  at  regular  inter- 
vals between  the  courses  of  the  winter  torrents. 

The  valley  before  us  is  that  which  the  Greeks 
named  Coele-Syria  or  "  Hollow  Syria."  In  modern 
Arabic  it  is  called  the  Bika'  or  "  Cleft."  Just  as 
in  Palestine  the  Jordan  River  and  its  two  lakes  are 
hemmed  in  by  mountains  which  rise  many  thousand 

[63] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

feet  above,  so  in  Syria  the  Bika'  stretches  between 
the  parallel  ranges  of  Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon. 
There  is,  however,  one  striking  difference  between  the 
two  valleys.  That  of  the  Jordan  is  a  deep  depres- 
sion, and  the  mouth  of  the  river  is  nearly  1,300  feet 
below  the  surface  of  the  Mediterranean.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  central  valley  of  Syria  throughout  its 
entire  length  lies  considerably  above  sea-level,  and 
at  its  highest  point  reaches  an  elevation  of  about 
4,000  feet.  The  Bika',  which  is  seventy  miles  long 


Conventionalized  cross-section  of  Syria  from  Beirut  (B)  to 
Damacus  (D).  The  horizontal  distances  are  marked  in  miles, 
the  vertical  in  feet. 

and  from  seven  to  ten  miles  wide,  is  exceedingly  fer- 
tile, and  in  it  rise  the  two  largest  rivers  of  Syria. 
Near  their  sources  the  Orontes  and  Leontes  pass 
within  less  than  two  miles  of  each  other ;  yet  the  for- 
mer flows  to  the  north  past  Hama  and  Aleppo,  while 
the  latter  turns  southward  and  reaches  the  Mediter- 
ranean between  Tyre  and  Sidon. 

The  Bika*  extends  north  and  south  as  far  as 
we  can  see  and  is  apparently  as  level  as  a  floor. 

[64]   " 


ACROSS   THE   MOUNTAINS 

There  are  hardly  any  trees  on  it,  only  two  or  three 
tiny  hamlets  and  no  isolated  buildings.  The  Syrian 
farmers  prefer  to  dwell  on  the  hillsides ;  for  there  the 
water  of  the  springs  is  cooler,  it  is  easier  to  guard  the 
villages  against  marauding  bands,  and  all  of  the  ara- 
ble land  below  is  left  free  for  cultivation.  So  the 
great  flat  fields  of  plowed  earth  or  ripening  grain 
which  fill  the  valley  seem  the  pattern  of  a  long  Ori- 
ental carpet  in  rich  reds  and  browns  and  greens  and 
yellows,  unrolled  between  the  mountains. 

As  we  pass  from  the  shadow  of  a  last  obstructing 
embankment,  there  bursts  upon  our  vision  the  glori- 
ous patriarch  of  Syrian  peaks.  Twenty-five  miles 
to  the  south  the  splendid  crest  of  Hermon  towers 
into  the  cloudless  sky  a  full  mile  above  the  surround- 
ing heights. 

The  familiar  Hebrew  name  of  this  famous  mountain 
means  the  "  Sacred  One,"  and  the  expression  "  the 
Baal  of  Hermon,"  1  seems  to  indicate  that  in  very 
ancient  times  it  bore  a  popular  shrine.  The  Jews  also 
knew  it  by  its  Amorite  title  Senir,  the  "  Banner." 
Modern  Syrians  sometimes  refer  to  it  as  the  "  Snow 
Mountain,"  for  its  summit  is  capped  with  white  long 
after  the  summer  sun  has  melted  the  drifts  from  the 
lower  peaks.  Most  commonly,  however,  it  is  called 
esh-Sheikh,  which  means  "  the  Old  Man,"  or  rather 
"  the  Chieftain,"  for  age  and  authority  are  indissolu- 

iThis  is  the  correct  rendering  of  Judges  3:3. 
[65] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

bly  associated  in  the  thought  of  the  Arabic-speaking 
world.2 

Hermon  is  by  far  the  most  conspicuous  landmark 
in  all  Palestine  and  Syria.  I  have  seen  it  from  the 
north,  south,  east  and  west.  I  have  admired  it  from 
its  own  near  foothills  and  from  a  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  away.  Viewed  from  every  side  it  has  the  same 
shape  —  a  long,  gently  rising  cone  of  wonderful 
beauty;  wherever  you  stand,  it  seems  to  be  squarely 
facing  you ;  and  from  every  viewpoint  it  dominates 
the  landscape  as  do  few  other  mountains  in  the  world. 

This  sacred  peak  influenced  the  religious  idealism 
of  many  centuries.  Upon  its  slopes  lay  Dan,  the 
farthest  point  of  the  Land  of  Promise.  "  From  Dan 
to  Beer-sheba,"  from  the  great  mountain  of  the  north 
to  the  wells  of  the  South  Country,  stretched  the  Holy 
Land.  Hebrew  poets  and  prophets  sang  of  the  plen- 
teous dew  of  Hermon,  its  deep  forests,  its  wild,  free 
animal  life.  Upon  its  rugged  shoulders  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  continued  the  worship  of  the  old  Syrian 
nature-gods.  Hither,  in  the  tenth  century,  fled  from 

2  C.  R.  Conder,  the  eminent  Palestinian  archaeologist,  points 
out  that  Arabic  grammar  necessitates  our  translating  Jebel 
esh-Sheikh  "  Mountain  of  the  Sheikh,"  and  derives  the  appella- 
tion from  the  fact  that  in  the  tenth  century  the  founder  of 
the  Druse  religion  took  up  his  residence  in  Hermon  (Hastings, 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  s.  v.  "Hermon").  But  no  one  who 
has  seen  the  white  head  of  the  tall,  strong  mountain  can  help 
thinking  of  Hermon  as  itself  the  proud,  reverend  sheikh  of  the 
glorious  tribe  of  Syrian  peaks. 

[66] 


ACROSS   THE   MOUNTAINS 

Egypt  Sheikh  ed-Durazy  and  made  it  the  center  of 
the  new  Druse  religion.  Above  its  steep  precipices 
the  Crusaders  built  two  of  their  largest  castles.  But 
one  most  solemn  event  of  all  uplifts  the  sacred  moun- 
tain even  closer  to  the  skies ;  for  on  some  unnamed 
summit  of  the  "  Chieftain  "  the  supreme  Leader  stood 
when  the  heavens  opened  for  His  transfiguration. 

We  cross  the  valley  rapidly  to  the  junction-station 
of  Rayak  and  then,  again  ascending,  penetrate  the 
Eastern  Mountains  by  a  winding  river-course  which, 
as  we  follow  it  higher  and  higher,  affords  fine  views 
over  the  Bika'  to  the  range  of  Lebanon  through 
which  we  were  so  long  traveling.  Directly  opposite 
us  stands  Jebel  Keneiseh,  bare,  brown  and  forbidding, 
while  beside  it  rises  the  loftier  Sunnin.  When  viewed 
from  the  coast,  this  noble  mountain  reveals  one  long, 
even  slope  to  its  topmost  crest;  but  its  back  is  made 
up  of  a  multitude  of  rounded  eminences,  so  that  it 
resembles  an  enormous  blackberry.  Twenty  miles 
to  the  north  of  Sunnin,  near  the  famous  Cedars  of 
Lebanon,  the  range  culminates  in  a  group  of  snow- 
capped peaks  which  lack  the  impressiveness  of  Her- 
mon's  haughty  isolation,  yet  which  actually  rise  two 
thousand  feet  above  even  the  Sheikh  Mountain. 

After  crossing  the  watershed  of  Anti-Lebanon,  we 
turn  south  through  the  lovely  little  vale  of  Zebedani. 
At  our  left  are  the  highest  summits  of  the  range ;  at 
our  right  are  precipitous  cliffs  which,  save  for  a 
glimpse  of  the  snows  of  Hermon,  shut  off  the  distant 

[67] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

view;  but  between  these  heights  is  a  scene  of  quiet, 
comfortable  beauty.  The  tract  is  well-watered  and 
fertile,  and  its  wheat-fields  are  as  level  as  the  surface 
of  a  lake.  Indeed,  there  surely  must  have  been  a  lake 
here  once  upon  a  time.  Along  the  eastern  edge  of 
the  grain-land  are  charming,  green-hedged  gardens 
and  closely  planted  orchards  and  long  lines  of  pop- 
lar trees,  while  low-bent  vines  hug  the  sunny  slopes  at 
the  mountain's  foot.  This  high  but  sheltered  valley 
is  one  of  the  few  places  in  Syria  where  really  fine  ap- 
ples are  grown,  and  the  grapes  and  apricots  of  Zebe- 
dani  are  famous  throughout  the  whole  country. 

In  a  small  marshy  lake  among  the  hills  that  border 
the  rich,  slumbrous  little  plain  there  rises  one  of  the 
world's  greatest  rivers ;  great  not  in  size  —  at  its 
widest  it  is  hardly  more  than  a  mountain  brook  and 
no  ship  has  ever  sailed  its  waters  —  but  great  be- 
cause it  has  made  one  of  the  proudest  cities  of  earth ; 
for  this  slender  stream  which  winds  so  leisurely 
through  the  wheat-fields  of  Zebedani  is  the  far-famed 
Abana,  and  Abana  is  the  father  of  Damascus. 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  valley,  the  brook  turns 
sharply  eastward  through  a  break  in  the  mountains, 
and  we  follow  it  swiftly  down  a  succession  of  narrow 
chasms  and  wild  ravines,  all  the  way  to  the  end  of 
our  journey.  The  first  two  hours  of  our  ride  we 
traveled  but  twelve  miles :  the  last  two  hours  we  slide 
forty  miles  around  short,  confusing  curves.  Some- 
times there  are  distant  views  of  bare,  reddish  sum- 

[68] 


ACROSS   THE   MOUNTAINS 

mits ;  often  we  are  hemmed  in  by  the  dense  growth 
of  trees  which  border  the  stream ;  but  we  are  never 
far  from  the  rushing  waters  of  the  Abana. 

There  is  ancient  history  along  our  route,  not  to 
speak  of  legends  innumerable.  The  little  village  of 
Suk  Wadi  Barada  or  "  Barada  Valley  Market,"  was 
once  called  Abila,  and  was  the  chief  city  of  the  Tet- 
rarchy  of  Abilene,  the  fixed  date  of  whose  establish- 
ment helps  us  to  compute  the  chronology  of  the  Gos- 
pels.3 The  valley  itself  is  still  known  here  as  Abila; 
and  therefore,  through  a  characteristic  confusion  of 
names,  the  Moslems  locate  the  grave  of  Abel  on  the 
summit  of  an  adjoining  hill.  Cain,  they  say,  was  at 
his  wits'  end  how  to  dispose  of  the  dead  body  of  his 
brother,  for  burial  was  of  course  unknown  to  him ; 
so  the  murderer  carried  the  corpse  on  his  back  many 
days,  seeking  in  vain  a  place  where  he  might  securely 
conceal  the  evidence  of  his  crime.  At  last,  accord- 
ing to  the  Koran,  "  God  sent  a  raven  which  scratched 
upon  the  ground,  to  show  him  how  he  might  hide  his 
brother's  corpse."  4 

Across  the  ravine  from  Suk  Wadi  Barada  we  can 
see  the  remains  of  an  ancient  road  hewn  in  the  solid 
rock,  and  a  ruined  aqueduct  which  some  say  was 
built  by  Queen  Zenobia  to  carry  the  water  of  the 
Abana  across  the  desert  to  Palmyra.  It  is  almost 
certain,  however,  that  both  road  and  aqueduct,  as 
well  as  the  tombs  whose  openings  appear  higher  up 

«Cf.  Luke  3:1.  *  Sura  5:34. 

[69] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

in  the  cliff,  were  constructed  in  the  second  century 
by  the  Romans. 

Ain  Fijeh,  the  next  important  village,  bears  a 
peculiarly  redundant  name,  which  reminds  us  of  Ger- 
man Baden-Baden.  The  first  first  word  is  Arabic 
and  the  second  is  a  corruption  of  the  Greek  pege, 
and  both  mean  "  spring."  But,  after  all,  "  Spring 
Spring  "  is  not  such  a  bad  name ;  for  there  gushes 
from  a  cave  in  the  rock  such  an  abundant  fountain 
that  the  Abana  here  increases  threefold  in  volume, 
and  mediaeval  Arab  geographers,  as  well  as  the  mod- 
ern inhabitants  of  the  mountains,  are  unanimous  in 
considering  this  the  principal  source  of  the  river. 
From  the  cold,  clear  spring,  a  small  tile  aqueduct  has 
for  the  last  few  years  carried  drinking-water  to  Da- 
mascus. Unfortunately,  however,  only  a  few  of  the 
more  important  buildings  are  as  yet  supplied  from 
this  source,  and  the  common  people  are  loath  to  jour- 
ney to  the  public  fountains  when  there  are  all  over  the 
city  so  many  nearer  —  and  dirtier  —  streams  from 
which  to  draw.  "  The  Moslems,  especially,  prefer 
to  drink  water  which  runs  in  the  open  rather  than 
that  which  is  piped,"  said  a  native  physician  in  an- 
swer to  my  questions  as  to  the  health  of  Damascus. 
"  So,  you  see,"  he  added  facetiously,  "  my  practice 
has  not  suffered  appreciably  since  the  completion  of 
the  aqueduct." 

As  we  descend  the  narrow,  winding  valley  of 
the  Abana,  it  becomes  more  and  more  choked  with 

[70] 


An  old  bridge  over  the  Barada  River 


ACROSS   THE   MOUNTAINS 

verdure.  We  now  begin  to  understand  why  the 
Greeks  called  this  the  CTirysorrhoas  or  "  Golden 
River."  If  we  take  advantage  of  one  of  the  lengthy 
stops  to  step  across  the  track  and  plunge  our  hands 
into  its  icy  waters,  we  realize  the  fitness  of  its  mod- 
ern Arabic  name,  Barada  —  the  "  Cold  Stream." 
Occasionally  we  still  glimpse  far  above  us  grim,  tree- 
less heights;  but,  between  the  cliffs,  dense  thickets  or 
closely  planted  orchard  trees  line  the  river-banks. 
Now  the  Abana  is  a  roaring,  foaming  torrent;  now 
it  flows  chill,  deep  and  silent;  but  always  it  hurries 
as  if  it  were  racing  with  the  train.  This,  in  its  turn, 
goes  more  rapidly.  It  twists  and  swings  and  bumps 
as  it  takes  dangerously  short  curves  at  —  for  a 
Syrian  train  —  full  speed.  We  pass  into  the 
shadow  of  a  beetling  precipice  and,  beneath  the  thick 
foliage  which  overhangs  it,  the  river  runs  black  as 
ink.  Then,  suddenly,  we  have  left  the  gloom  of  the 
mountains  and  are  out  in  the  bright  sunlight  which 
floods  a  boundless  plain.  We  have  crossed  to  the 
eastern  edge  of  Syria  and  before  us,  just  beyond  the 
orchards  of  Damascus,  lies  the  desert. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE      LAND     OF     UZ 

TO  appreciate  truly  the  significance  of  Damas- 
cus, one  should  approach  it  from  the  east, 
across  the  thirsty  wilderness  which  stretches 
between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Syrian  mountains. 
The  long,  wearisome  journey  would  be  worth  while  if 
only  for  the  first  glimpse  of  the  city  as  it  appears 
to  the  wondering  eyes  of  the  desert-dweller.  But  the 
twentieth  century  visitor  may  be  excused  if  he  pre- 
fers to  save  time  and  strength  by  utilizing  the  rail- 
way. To-day  there  is  even  a  choice  of  routes.  He 
can  travel  to  Damascus  from  the  west  comfortably, 
or  from  the  south  speedily.  But  the  adverbs  are 
not  interchangeable. 

We  have  already  taken  the  slow,  beautiful  journey 
from  Beirut  across  the  two  mountain  ranges.  The 
other  railway  between  Damascus  and  the  coast  starts 
from  the  seaport  of  Haifa,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Car- 
mel,  and  follows  at  first  a  fairly  easy  grade  through 
the  historic  Plain  of  Esdraelon  to  the  Jordan  Valley 
at  Beisan.  From  here  it  runs  northward  along  the 
river  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee,1  then  in  a  general  easterly 

i  See   the   author's    The   Real  Palestine   of   To-day,   chapter 
[72] 


THE   LAND    OF   UZ 


direction  up  the  valley  of  the  Yarmuk  to  the  plateau 
of  the  Hauran,  where  the  Haifa  branch  joins  the 
main  line  of  the  Mecca  railway.  Although  the  dis- 
tance to  Damascus  by  this  route  is  a  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-seven miles,  or  almost  twice  that  from  Beirut, 
the  journey  takes  no  longer.  But  in  warm  weather 
it  is  not  a  very  comfortable  trip,  for  more  than  half 
the  time  the  train  is  below  the  level  of  the  sea. 

From  Semakh,  which  lies  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee  six  hundred  feet  below  the  Mediter- 
ranean, the  railway  ascends  the  Yarmuk  gorge 
through  the  most  wild  and  desolate  scenery  imagi- 
nable. The  entire  region  northeast  of  Galilee  is  vol- 
canic. Prehistoric  flows  of  molten  rock  extended 
over  large  areas,  and  the  subsequent  erosion  of  the 
river  has  cut  through  a  solid  layer  of  hard  basalt 
from  ten  to  fifty  feet  thick,  whose  perpendicular  black 
cliffs  appear  in  striking  contrast  to  the  irregular 
outlines  of  the  softer  limestone  beneath. 

For  two  hours  after  leaving  the  Sea  of  Galilee  we 
do  not  pass  a  human  habitation ;  indeed,  for  the  first 
few  miles  there  is  no  evidence  of  vegetable  life  except 
now  and  then  a  small  clump  of  bushes  at  a  bend  of 
the  stream.  As  the  train  puffs  slowly  up  the  bed  of 
the  steep,  twisting  ravine,  all  that  can  be  seen  is  the 
narrow  torrent  rushing  madly  along  between  white 
walls  of  lime  or  chalk,  above  these  a  smooth,  regular 

XV,  "  The  War-path  of  the  Empires,"  and  XVIII,  "  The  Lake 
of  God's  Delight." 

[73l 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

layer  of  shining  black  basalt  and,  as  we  look  straight 
up  or  down  the  valley,  a  few  bare,  brown  mountain- 
tops  showing  above  the  nearer  cliffs.  After  a 
while,  however,  oleanders  appear  along  the  riverside, 
and  for  mile  upon  mile  their  thick  foliage  and  gor- 


geous flowers  add  the  one  touch  of  life  to  the  wild, 
lonely  landscape.  We  pass  a  strange  monolithic 
pyramid  a  hundred  feet  high,  which  has  been  carved 
by  some  freak  of  the  winter  floods.  A  little  farther 
on,  a  recent  landslide  has  covered  the  bottom  of  the 
valley  with  black  stones  and  soot-like  dust.  Even 

[74] 


THE   LAND    OF   UZ 


early  in  the  morning  it  is  hot  and  stifling  in  this 
breezeless  trench  below  the  level  of  the  ocean. 

As  we  rise  higher,  however,  scattered  olive  trees  ap- 
pear among  the  oleanders  by  the  riverside,  and  a  few 
little  patches  of  thin  wheat  are  seen  among  the  rocks. 
A  small  herd  of  black,  long-haired  goats  are  drinking 
in  the  stream.  We  are  startled  to  behold  a  rude  oil- 
well.  A  dozen  men  are  gathered  at  each  railway  sta- 
tion, though  the  villages  from  which  they  have  come 
are  still  invisible  on  the  heights  above  us.  Then  the 
valley  suddenly  turns  and  broadens,  and  we  see 
against  the  cloudless  sky  the  clean-cut  profile  of  the 
highland  country  toward  which  we  have  been  so  long 
ascending.  The  track  now  leaves  the  river's  bank 
and,  in  great  loops,  quickly  mounts  the  side  of  the 
valley.  From  the  edge  of  the  plateau  there  comes 
tumbling  a  magnificent  succession  of  cascades,  which 
finally  roar  under  a  railway  bridge  and  break  in 
spray  at  the  bottom  of  the  gorge  far  below  us.  An- 
other broader  waterfall  drops  in  a  solid  sheet  of  silver 
from  the  unseen  land  beyond  the  level  summit  of  the 
precipice.  Our  train  twists  up  a  last  steep  grade, 
straightens  out  on  the  level  ground  —  and,  after  look- 
ing for  three  hours  at  the  close  cliffs  which  hemmed 
in  a  narrow  valley,  it  gladdens  our  eyes  to  gaze  now 
on  the  vast  prospect  which  is  revealed  in  the  shimmer- 
ing light  of  the  noonday  sun. 

Before  us  stretches  the  Hauran,  the  ancient  Land 
of  Bashan,  a  rolling  sea  of  soft  brownish  earth  and 

[75] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

waving  wheat.  From  time  immemorial  this  has  been 
the  chief  granary  of  western  Asia.  Until  we  become 
accustomed  to  the  new  perspective,  we  can  not  dis- 
tinguish a  village  or  tree  or  living  creature.  Here 
and  there  a  few  apparently  low  hills  show  their  sum- 
mits above  the  horizon.  The  Arabs,  who  came  from 
the  high  eastern  desert,  called  this  the  Hauran,  or 
"  Depression,"  because  it  lies  flat  between  the  moun- 
tains. But  to  us  who  have  climbed  hither  from  a 
point  2,500  feet  below,  the  broad  acres  of  Bashan 
seem  set  far  up  among  the  lonely  skies.  An  endless, 
level,  undivided  expanse  of  wheat ;  dim  summits  far 
away ;  fertility  and  spaciousness  and  freedom  and 
strong,  ceaseless  wind  —  this  is  the  Hauran. 

Muzeirib,  the  first  station  on  the  plateau,  is  the 
terminus  of  the  earliest  railway  from  Damascus  to  the 
Hauran,  which  was  completed  by  the  French  in  1895. 
During  recent  years  this  has  suffered  severely  from 
the  competition  of  the  Hejaz  Railway  begun  in  1901 
by  Abdul  Hamid ;  for  the  Turkish  line  is  some- 
what cheaper,  has  better  connections,  and  enjoys  the 
odor  of  sanctity.  In  fact,  its  chief  avowed  object  is 
ultimately  to  connect  Damascus  with  Mecca  and  thus 
provide  transportation  for  the  multitude  of  the 
Faithful  who  each  year  make  the  pilgrimage  to  the 
holy  city.  Only  Moslems  were  employed  on  the  con- 
struction of  this  sacred  railway,  large  numbers  of 
Turkish  soldiers  were  detailed  as  guards  and  laborers ; 
and,  besides  special  taxes  which  were  levied,  volun- 

[76] 


THE   LAND    OF   UZ 


tary  subscriptions  for  the  pious  enterprise  were  sent 
in  from  all  over  the  world  of  Islam.  On  account  of 
the  revolution  of  the  Young  Turks  and  the  troublous 
times  which  followed  the  enforced  abdication  of  Abd- 
ul Hamid,  no  work  has  been  done  on  the  railway  for 
several  years.  Already,  however,  it  extends  823 
miles  to  Medina,  which  is  four-fifths  of  the  distance 
to  Mecca ;  but  non-Moslems  are  strictly  forbidden  to 
travel  beyond  Ma'an,  285  miles  from  Damascus,  with- 
out a  special  permit  from  the  government. 

Der'a,  where  we  join  the  Hejaz  main-line,  has 
since  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity  been  identified 
with  Edrei,  the  capital  of  Og,  the  giant  king  of  Ba- 
shan.2  Beneath  the  ancient  citadel,  which  stands 
some  distance  to  the  south  of  the  station,  is  a  wonder- 
ful labyrinth  of  caves,  with  real  streets  and  shops  as 
well  as  dwelling-places.  This  underground  city 
doubtless  was  intended  as  a  refuge  for  the  entire 
population  of  the  capital  in  time  of  siege,  but  it  has 
not  been  used  for  many  centuries. 

As  our  train  now  turns  northward  from  Der'a, 
Mount  Hermon  comes  into  full  view  at  our  left,  in  all 
its  splendor  of  towering  summit  and  dazzling  white- 
ness, and  the  lofty  blue  cone  with  its  long  streaks 
of  summer  snow  stays  with  us  for  the  rest  of  the 
day. 

Thirty  miles  to  our  right,  JebelHauran,  also  known 
as  the  "  Druse  Mountain,"  rises  from  the  level  sea 
2  Numbers  21:33. 
[77] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

of  grain  like  a  long,  low  island.  At  such  a  distance 
we  find  it  difficult,  even  in  this  crystal  air,  to 
realize  that  the  isolated  mountain  is  really  forty  miles 
long  and  only  a  little  short  of  six  thousand  feet  high. 
It  is  one  of  the  few  localities  in  the  region  where  are 
still  found  the  once  famous  "  oaks  of  Bashan." 3 
Since  the  religious  struggles  which  drenched  Syria 
with  blood  in  1860,  many  thousand  Druses  have  mi- 
grated from  Lebanon  to  the  Hauran,  where  the  spe- 
cial retreat  and  stronghold  of  this  proud,  brave,  re- 
lentless people  is  the  mountain  which  bears  their 
name.  Hither  they  flee  from  the  conscription;  here 
they  defy  the  hated  tax-collector,  flaunt  their  con- 
tempt of  the  weak  Turkish  government  and,  as  is 
their  wont  everywhere,  waste  their  own  strength  in 
bitter  family  feuds. 

A  very  ancient  and  plausible  Christian  tradition, 
which  since  the  rise  of  Islam  has  also  been  accepted 
implicitly  by  the  Moslems,  identifies  the  Hauran  with 
the  "  Land  of  Uz  "  where  dwelt  the  patriarch  Job. 
Three  towns  on  the  western  slopes  of  the  Druse 
Mountain  perpetuate  his  story.  Bishop  William  of 
Tyre,  writing  in  the  twelfth  century,  mentions  the 
popular  belief  that  Job's  friend  Bildad  the  Shuhite 
dwelt  at  Suweida,  and  the  inhabitants  of  this  village 
boast  that  the  patriarch  himself  was  their  first  sheikh. 
At  Kanawat  a  group  of  very  old  ruins  is  commonly 
known  as  the  "  Convent  of  Job,"  and  at  Bosra,  the 
3  Isaiah  2:13,  etc. 
[78] 


THE    LAND    OF   UZ 


ancient  capital  of  the  Hauran,  there  is  a  Latin  in- 
scription in  his  praise.  Probably  this  belonged  to  a 
sixth  century  leper  asylum;  for  the  suffering  patri- 
arch early  came  to  be  considered  the  special  patron 
of  those  who,  like  himself,  were  afflicted  with  the  most 
mysterious  and  loathsome  of  diseases. 

But  it  is  in  the  plain  that  memories  of  this  Biblical 
drama  cluster  most  closely.  Nawa,  twenty  miles 
northwest  of  Der'a,  has  for  two  thousand  years 
been  honored  as  Job's  birthplace.  An  hour's  ride 
to  the  south  of  this  village  there  stood  fifteen  hundred 
years  ago  a  splendid  church  dedicated  to  the  Man  of 
Uz,  and  part  of  the  ruined  "  Monastery  of  Job  "  is 
still  in  good  enough  condition  to  be  used  as  Turkish 
barracks.  Near  by  is  shown  the  rock  on  which  he 
leaned  while  arguing  with  his  three  friends  —  it  is  a 
small  basalt  monument  erected  by  Rameses  II. —  also 
the  stone  trough  in  which  he  washed  after  his  afflic- 
tions were  ended,  and  the  tomb  of  the  patriarch  and 
his  wife. 

In  spite  of  the  nai've  and  often  impossible  localiza- 
tion of  particular  incidents  of  the  story  of  Job,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  the  very  old  tradition  is  correct, 
and  the  mysterious  Land  of  Uz  across  which  roamed 
the  herds  and  flocks  of  "  the  greatest  of  all  the  Chil- 
dren of  the  East  "  was  this  same  free,  fertile  table- 
land along  which  we  are  now  traveling.  Before  the 
Hauran  was  so  largely  given  over  to  agriculture,  it 
must  have  been  an  ideal  grazing  country;  it  has  al- 

[79] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

ways  been  subject  to  forays  by  robber  tribes  from 
the  desert ; 4  and  the  "  great  wind  from  the  wilder- 
ness "  which  smote  the  dwelling  of  Job's  eldest  son  5 
would  perhaps  nowhere  else  blow  with  such  fury  as 
on  this  high,  open  plateau. 

There  was  just  such  a  great  wind  from  the  wilder- 
ness the  last  time  I  went  to  Damascus.  The  Hauran 
bears  a  deserved  reputation  for  coolness  and  health- 
fulness  ;  but  that  day,  as  happens  two  or  three  times 
each  summer,  there  was  a  sirocco.  The  wind  was  in- 
deed blowing  —  blowing  a  furious  gale  of  perhaps 
thirty-five  miles  an  hour;  but  it  came  straight  from 
the  eastern  desert  and  scorched  as  if  it  had  been  a 
blast  from  an  opened  furnace  door.  I  did  not  have  a 
thermometer  with  me;  but,  from  sirocco  experiences 
elsewhere,  I  should  judge  that  the  temperature  in 
the  train  was  not  under  a  hundred  and  five  degrees. 
The  drinking-water  that  we  had  brought  for  the  jour- 
ney became  warm  and  nauseating;  but  we  put  it  to 
good  use  in  soaking  the  back  of  our  necks,  where  it 
evaporated  so  quickly  in  the  dry,  burning  wind  that 
it  stung  like  ice  for  a  few  seconds,  and  then  was  gone. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  only  other  way  to  miti- 
gate the  heat  was  to  shut  the  car  windows  and  keep 
the  breeze  out. 

There  were  fortunately  some  interesting  incidents 
to  enliven  the  long,  hot  ride  over  the  monotonous 
plain.  We  did  not  see  any  of  the  renowned  "  strong 

4  Job  1:15,  17.         s  Job  1:19. 
[80] 


THE    LAND    OF   UZ 


bulls  of  Bashan,"  6  or  any  other  cattle  grazing  on  the 
plain,  but  we  watched  slow  caravans  bearing  wheat 
to  the  coast,  as  they  have  been  doing  for  millenniums 
past.  They  could  never  carry  all  the  grain  that  this 
productive  district  might  harvest,  and  the  railways 
should  prove  a  rich  boon  to  the  Hauran.  We  pon- 
dered curiously  as  to  why  the  stations  were  never  by 
any  chance  just  at  the  towns  and  why  the  track 
should  swing  far  to  the  right  and  left  in  great  curves, 
as  if  it  were  ascending  a  difficult  grade,  when  the  only 
engineering  problem  involved  in  its  construction 
could  have  been  solved  by  laying  a  ruler  on  the  map 
and  drawing  a  straight  line  down  the  center  of  the 
level  plain.  A  fellow-traveler  explained  to  us  that 
the  course  of  the  railway  had  not  been  determined 
by  the  usual  considerations,  such  as  economy  of  con- 
struction and  the  desirability  of  passing  through  the 
most  densely  populated  districts,  but  by  the  amount 
of  bakhsheesh  which  wealthy  landowners  would  pay 
the  government  in  order  to  have  the  line  pass  through 
their  estates. 

We  stopped  an  unconscionable  length  of  time 
at  every  station,  for  no  evident  reason;  and  when 
we  did  get  ready  to  start  there  were  so  many  vocifer- 
ous warnings  that  very  naturally  none  of  them  was 
heeded  by  the  passengers  who  had  got  off  for  refresh- 
ments. So  finally  the  rapidly  moving  train  would  be 
chased  by  a  crowd  of  excited  peasants,  most  of  whom 
e  Psalm  22:12,  etc. 

[Si] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

carried  big  bundles  and  wore  long,  hampering  gar- 
ments. Several  were  left  behind  at  lonely  stations. 
There  would  be  another  train  —  to-morrow !  Of 
course,  all  the  dogs  ran  after  us.  Provided  they  are 
well-fed,  dogs  and  children  are  exactly  the  same  the 
world  over;  and  these  were  not  the  starved,  sullen 
curs  which  lie  in  Oriental  gutters,  but  were  wide- 
awake, fun-loving  fellows  who  ran  merrily  alongside 
the  train  for  a  half-mile  from  the  town,  and  had  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  our  English  shouts  of  en- 
couragement. As  we  were  pulling  out  of  one  of  the 
stations,  a  very  reverend,  gray-bearded  old  farmer 
stole  a  ride  on  the  running-board;  but  he  misjudged 
the  quickly  increasing  speed  of  the  train,  and,  when  he 
at  last  decided  to  jump  off,  rolled  head-over-heels 
down  the  steep  embankment.  The  last  we  saw  of  him, 
he  was  gazing  after  us  with  a  ludicrously  dejected 
countenance  whose  every  lineament  expressed  stern 
disapproval  of  the  nervous  haste  of  these  degenerate 
modern  days. 

As  a  rule  the  other  travelers  were  too  hot  and  tired 
to  afford  us  much  entertainment ;  but  one  new  arrival, 
not  finding  a  seat  elsewhere,  tried  to  force  his  way 
into  the  harem-compartment  which  Turkish  railways 
always  provide  for  the  seclusion  of  Moslem  ladies. 
The  lord  and  master  of  the  particular  harem  occu- 
pying this  compartment  resented  the  intrusion  with 
such  a  frenzy  of  threatening  gesticulation  and  insult- 
ing malediction  that  the  members  of  our  party  who 

[82] 


THE   LAND    OF   UZ 


were  unaccustomed  to  the  ways  of  the  East  expected 
to  see  murder  committed  forthwith.  The  conductor, 
who  interposed  as  peace-maker,  was  —  as  is  usual  on 
this  holy  railway  —  a  Turk  who  knew  no  Arabic, 
and  he  consequently  had  great  difficulty  in  determin- 
ing what  the  quarrel  was  about ;  but  the  Syrians 
have  a  healthy  fear  of  any  one  wearing  a  uniform,  so 
the  trouble  was  finally  adjusted  without  bloodshed. 

After  we  became  accustomed  to  the  peculiar  fea- 
tures of  the  landscape  we  could  now  and  then  distin- 
guish a  village.  Yet  at  a  very  short  distance  the  lar- 
gest settlements  were  blurred  into  the  brown  plain ; 
for  the  houses  are  all  built  of  a  dull  black  basalt  and, 
save  for  one  or  two  square  towers,  the  compact  ham- 
lets are  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  rough  out- 
croppings  of  rock.  All  of  the  dwellings  look  like  de- 
serted ruins :  some  of  them  are.  All  seem  centuries 
old :  many  have  been  occupied  for  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years,  for  the  hard  basalt  seems  never  to  crum- 
ble. 

The  extraordinarily  rich  earth  of  the  Hauran  is 
only  disintegrated  lava,  and  as  we  near  the  end  of  the 
plain  we  pass  tracts  where  presumably  more  recent 
eruptions   have  not  yet  been  weathered  into   fertile 
soil.     Two  or  three  miles  to  the  east  of  the  railway 
a  long  line  of  dark  rock  some  thirty  feet  high  marks 
the  western  edge  of  the  Leja,  which  in  New  Testa- 
ment times  was  known  as  the  Trachonitis  7  or  "  Rocky 
7  Luke  3:1. 
[83] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

Place."  From  now-extinct  volcanoes  at  the  northern 
end  of  the  Druse  Mountain  there  flowed  these  three 
hundred  and  fifty  square  miles  of  lava,  which  has 
broken  in  cooling  into  such  a  maze  of  irregular  fis- 
sures that  its  surface  has  been  likened  to  that  of  a 
petrified  ocean.  Yet  this  rugged  region  contains  also 
little  lakes,  and  pockets  of  arable  soil,  and  numerous 
ruins  of  villages  and  roads  and  bridges  which  point 
to  a  considerable  population  in  former  days.  Leja 
means  "  hiding-place  "  or  u  refuge,"  and  the  Druses 
call  this  forbidding  district  the  "  Fortress  of  Allah." 
The  entire  lava  mass  is  honeycombed  with  caves.  In- 
deed, the  people  of  the  Hauran  say  that  one 
who  knew  the  labyrinth  of  subterranean  passages 
could  make  his  way  from  one  end  of  the  Leja  to  the 
other  without  once  appearing  above  ground.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  this  immense  natural  citadel,  with  its 
unmarked  trails,  its  innumerable  hiding-places  in  dark 
caves  or  deep-cut  fissures  of  the  rock,  and  its  easy 
dominance  over  the  dwellers  on  the  level  plain  below, 
has  always  been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  whatever  gov- 
ernment pretended  to  rule  the  Hauran.  Eighty 
years  ago  the  Druses  of  the  Leja,  although  they  were 
outnumbered  by  the  attacking  force  twenty  to  one, 
routed  with  terrible  slaughter  the  entire  army  of 
Ibrahim  Pasha,  the  great  Egyptian  conqueror. 

The  description  of  the  Leja  and  its  inhabitants 
which  was  written  in  the  first  century  A.  D.  by  Jo- 
sephus  would  serve  for  any  period  in  its  wild  history. 

[84] 


THE   LAND    OF   UZ 


"  It  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  restrain  them,  since  this 
way  of  robbery  had  been  their  usual  practice,  and 
they  had  no  other  way  to  get  their  living,  because 
they  had  neither  any  city  of  their  own,  nor  lands  in 
their  possession,  but  only  some  receptacles  and  dens 
in  the  earth,  and  there  they  and  their  cattle  lived  in 
common  together:  however,  they  had  made  contriv- 
ances to  get  pools  of  water,  and  laid  up  corn  in  gran- 
aries for  themselves,  and  were  able  to  make  great  re- 
sistance by  issuing  out  on  the  sudden  against  any 
that  attacked  them ;  for  the  entrances  of  their  caves 
were  narrow,  in  which  but  one  could  come  in  at  a 
time,  and  the  places  within  incredibly  large  and  made 
very  wide ;  but  the  ground  over  their  habitations  was 
not  very  high,  but  rather  on  a  plain,  while  the  rocks 
are  altogether  hard  and  difficult  to  be  entered  upon 
unless  any  one  gets  into  the  plain  road  by  the  guid- 
ance of  another,  for  these  roads  are  not  straight,  but 
have  several  revolutions.  But  when  these  men  are 
hindered  from  their  wicked  preying  upon  their  neigh- 
bors, their  custom  is  to  prey  one  upon  another,  inso- 
much that  no  sort  of  injustice  comes  amiss  to  them."  8 
Josephus5  diction  is  as  involved  as  the  labyrinthine 
trails  of  the  Leja,  but  his  facts  are  still  correct. 

Further  evidences  that  we  are  in  a  volcanic  region 

are  found  in  the  round  black  stones,  about  the  size 

of  large  bowling-balls,  which  now  begin  to   appear 

on  the  plain.     At  first  they  do  not  seriously  interfere 

8  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  XV.  10.1. 

[85] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

with  cultivation,  for  the  farmers  gather  them  into 
heaps  along  the  edges  of  their  fields.  A  few  miles 
farther  on,  however,  there  are  so  many  that  there 
has  been  no  attempt  to  remove  them  and  the  light 
plow  has  simply  scratched  whatever  narrow  strips  of 
earth  might  lie  between  the  rocks.  At  last  they  cover 
the  land  as  far  as  we  can  see,  with  hardly  their  own 
diameter  separating  them.  There  must  be  ten  thou- 
sand of  them  to  the  acre.  Millions  upon  millions  of 
black  spots  dot  the  nearer  landscape  and  in  the  dis- 
tance merge  into  an  apparently  solid  mass  of  dark, 
hard  sterility. 

By  this  time  most  of  the  passengers  in  our  coach 
have  become  very  tired  and  irritable,  though  the  loud 
breathing  of  some  indicates  that  they  have  fallen  into 
a  restless  slumber.  Several  are  quite  sick  from  the 
heat.  At  half-past  five  in  the  afternoon  the  sun 
has  lost  none  of  its  midday  glare,  and  the  noisy  wind 
from  the  desert  still  scorches  with  its  furnace  breath. 
On  either  side,  the  monotonous  multitude  of  round 
black  rocks  strew  the  brown,  burnt  earth.  The  hills, 
which  constantly  draw  in  closer  to  us,  seem  as  if  they 
might  have  fair  pasture-land  on  their  lower  slopes ; 
but,  save  for  the  shining  white  dome  of  one  Moslem 
tomb,  they  bear  nothing  higher  than  scattered  grass 
and  dusty  thorn-bushes.  We  climb  slowly  over  the 
watershed  in  the  narrow  neck  of  the  plain,  then  speed 
swiftly  down  a  steep  incline ;  and,  lo,  we  behold  a  ver- 

[86] 


THE   LAND    OF   UZ 


itable  paradise  of  running  water  and  heavily  laden 
orchard  trees,  above  which  the  glory  of  the  setting 
sun  gilds  a  forest  of  slender  minarets. 


[87] 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE     EARTHLY     PARADISE 

ACCORDING  to  the  Moslem  wise  men,  JebelKas- 
yun  is  a  very  sacred  mount ;  for  upon  it  Abra- 
ham dwelt  when  there  was  revealed  to  him  the 
supreme  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God.  Long  before 
that,  however,  Adam  lived  here:  some  say  that  he 
was  formed  from  the  earth  of  this  very  mountain, 
and  that  the  reddish  streaks  upon  its  sides  are  noth- 
ing less  than  the  indelible  bloodstains  of  murdered 
Abel. 

Yet  as  we  stand  by  the  little  shrine  known  as  the 
Dome  of  Victory,  which  crowns  the  summit,  we  are 
not  thinking  of  ancient  legends.  Below  us  lies  a 
scene  of  entrancing  interest  and  of  a  peculiar  beauty 
which  is  unlike  that  of  any  other  beautiful  prospect 
in  the  world. 

Back  of  us  are  the  mighty,  rock-buttressed  Moun- 
tains of  the  East,  from  whose  sterile  heart  is  rent  a 
deep,  dark  ravine  which  thunders  with  the  cascades 
of  the  Abana.  Then,  issuing  from  its  narrow  defile, 
Abana  is  suddenly  tamed.  It  spreads  fan-like  into 
seven  quiet  branches ;  and  these  in  turn  divide  and 
subdivide  into  a  myriad  life-giving  streams  which 

[88] 


THE   EARTHLY    PARADISE 

sink  at  last  in  wilderness  sands,  but,  ere  they  sink, 
make  the  desert  to  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the 
rose.1 

In  the  foreground  of  the  picture,  Damascus  seems 
like  an  immense  silver  spoon  laid  on  a  piece  of  soft, 
green  plush.  The  long,  slender  handle,  which  is 
made  up  of  the  modern  peasant-markets,  stretches 
away  two  miles  southward.  The  nearer  bowl  is  the 
site  of  the  ancient  city.  Above  its  monotonous  suc- 
cession of  solidly  massed  houses  are  seen  high,  cylin- 
drical roofs  which  cover  the  most  important  ba- 
zaars ;  in  the  very  center  stands  the  famous  Omay- 
yade  Mosque  with  its  splendid  dome  and  spacious 
court  and  three  lofty  towers,  while  a  multitude  of 
other  graceful  minarets  —  it  is  said  that  they  are 
exactly  as  many  as  the  days  of  the  year  —  rise  above 
the  most  mysterious  and  fascinating  of  Moslem  capi- 
tals. Surely  the  traveler  must  be  ignorant  of  his- 
tory and  bereft  of  sentiment  who  does  not  feel  a  deep, 
strange  thrill  as  he  first  looks  upon  the  great  city 

1  It  is  the  Abana,  or  Barada,  which  waters  by  far  the 
greater  portion  of  this  fertile  district.  The  identification  of 
the  Pharpar,  which  Naaman  mentioned  also  as  one  of  the 
"rivers  of  Damascus"  (II  Kings  5:15),  is  uncertain.  It  may 
have  been  one  of  the  branches  into  which  the  Abana  divides 
as  it  passes  through  the  city.  More  probably,  however,  it  was 
the  river  now  known  as  the  Awaj ;  for  this  is  the  only  other 
stream  in  the  vicinity  whose  size  is  comparable  to  that  of  the 
Abana  and,  though  it  flows  some  seven  miles  south  of 
Damascus,  it  is  used  for  irrigating  a  considerable  tract  of 
the  surrounding  orchard-country. 

[89] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

which  since  the  dawn  of  history  has  sat  in  proud 
strength  between  the  mountains  and  the  desert. 

From  the  viewpoint  of  physical  geography,  Syria 
is  Lebanon ;  but  politically,  commercially  and  socially, 
it  is  still  true  that  "  the  head  of  Syria  is  Damas- 
cus." 2  Indeed,  the  city  is  now  hardly  ever  called 
by  its  real  name,  Dimeshk.  It  is  simply  esh-Shdm  — 
Syria ! 

History  does  not  recall  a  time  when  Damascus  did 
not  nestle  here  among  the  orchards  which  sweep  out 
to  the  edge  of  the  desert.  The  Moslem  tradition 
that  it  was  founded  by  Eliezer,  the  chief  servant  of 
Abraham,  points  to  far  too  late  a  date.  Josephus 
tells  us  that  it  was  built  by  Uz,  the  grandson  of 
Shem  the  son  of  Noah,  and  that  when  Abraham  came 
hither  from  Ur  with  an  army  of  Chaldeans,  he  cap- 
tured the  already  old  capital  and  for  a  time  reigned 
here  as  king  of  Syria.3  "  The  name  of  Abram  is 
even  now  famous  in  the  country  of  Damascus,"  adds 
the  Jewish  historian.  Eighteen  hundred  years  later, 
that  is  still  true. 

Without  discussing  further  its  legendary  claims  to 
supreme  antiquity,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  Damascus 
is  the  oldest  important  city  in  the  world  with  an 
unbroken  history  reaching  to  the  present  day.  The 
fame  of  its  artificers  and  gardeners  is  embodied  even 
in  our  English  language ;  for  we  speak  of  Damascus 
steel,  the  damask  plum,  damask  rose,  damask  color, 

2  Isaiah  7:8.         3  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  1.6.4;  1.7.2. 
[90] 


THE   EARTHLY   PARADISE 

damask  decoration  and  damaskeened  metal-work. 
Many  of  the  greatest  men  of  earth  have  trodden  its 
streets  or  fought  before  its  walls  or  worshiped  at  its 
shrines.  Abraham  the  Hebrew,  Tiglath-pileser  the 
Assyrian  conqueror,  Herod  the  Great,  Paul  of  Tar- 
sus, Khaled  the  "  Sword  of  Allah,"  Baldwin  of  Flan- 
ders, Louis  VII.  of  France,  Nureddin  the  Syrian, 
Saladin  the  Kurd,  Tamerlane  the  Tartar  —  such  are 
only  a  few  of  the  names  which  come  to  mind  as  we 
gaze  upon  the  time-stained,  battle-worn,  but  still  rich 
and  haughty  city.  To  tell  adequately  the  story  of 
this  most  ancient  of  capitals  would  necessitate  cover- 
ing all  the  centuries  of  human  history. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  we  shall  find  a  tram-car  wait- 
ing to  take  us  to  a  modern  hotel  with  electric  lights 
and  city-water,  and  in  the  evening  we  can  hear  a 
phonograph  in  any  one  of  a  hundred  cafes,  or  visit 
moving-picture  shows  in  the  Serai  Square,  where  a 
tall  column  commemorates  the  completion  of  the  tele- 
graph-line to  Mecca.  Yet,  for  all  these  recent  in- 
novations from  the  Western  world,  the  real  Damascus 
is  quite  unchanged.  It  is  still  the  most  brilliant,  en- 
trancing, fanatical  and  intolerant  of  Moslem  cities, 
the  one  which  best  preserves  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  the  early  centuries  of  Islam.  Indeed,  this 
is  to-day  the  typical  Arabian  Nights  city ;  for  Cairo, 
where  those  thrilling  fairy  tales  were  first  related,  is 
rapidly  becoming  Europeanized  through  British  in- 
fluence, Constantinople  is  thronged  with  Greeks  and 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Armenians  and  intimidated  by  foreign  embassies,  and 
the  glory  of  Baghdad  has  long  since  departed.  But 
Haroun  al-Raschid  and  his  faithful  vizier  might  wan- 
der through  the  tortuous  mazes  of  the  bazaars  of 
Damascus  and  recognize  hardly  an  essential  change 
from  the  life  of  a  Moslem  capital  of  a  thousand  years 
ago. 

Its  Oriental  characteristics  have  been  thus  pre- 
served, and  will  doubtless  be  preserved  for  many 
years  to  come,  because  of  all  great  Arabic-speaking 
cities  Damascus  is  least  dependent  on  the  West.  An 
impassable  wall  might  cut  it  off  entirely  from  inter- 
course with  Europe,  and  still  it  would  thrive  and  wax 
strong  on  the  wealth  of  its  own  orchards  and  its 
commerce  with  the  lands  across  the  Syrian  desert. 

As  we  view  the  wide  prospect  from  the  Dome  of 
Victory,  the  city  seems  a  whitish  island,  half  hidden 
by  the  billows  of  an  ocean  of  luxuriant  foliage.  Far 
as  the  eye  can  see  —  far  as  the  dim  blue  hills  which 
mark  the  eastern  horizon  —  the  plain  is  flooded  with 
leaves  and  blossoms.  At  closer  view  we  shall  recog- 
nize the  fig  and  pomegranate,  the  mulberry,  pistachio, 
peach,  almond  and  apricot,  the  tall  poplar  and  wav- 
ing cypress  and  bending  grape-vine  and  short, 
gnarled  olive  tree.  But  from  Jebel  Kasyun  we  per- 
ceive only  one  great  expanse  of  warm,  rich  verdure; 
all  shapes  and  colors  are  merged  into  a  soft,  level 
green. 

Behind  us   rise   the  bare,   chalky   cliffs   of  Anti- 
[92] 


THE   EARTHLY   PARADISE 

Lebanon.  Beyond  those  low  azure  hills  at  the  east 
is  the  cruel  desert.  But  between  the  mountains 
and  the  desert  hills  lies  the  hundred  square  miles 
of  the  Ghuta  —  the  "  Garden  "  of  Damascus.  No 
language  is  too  extravagant  for  the  Arabic  writers 
who  describe  this  land  of  fruits  and  flowing  waters. 
It  is  "  the  most  excellent  of  all  the  beautiful 
places  of  earth,"  exclaims  the  learned  Abulfeda; 
and  the  famous  geographer  Idrisi  says,  "  There  are 
grown  here  all  sorts  of  fruits,  so  that  the  mind  can- 
not conceive  the  variety,  nor  can  any  comparison 
show  what  is  the  fruitfulness  and  excellence  thereof, 
for  Damascus  is  the  most  delightful  of  God's  cities 
in  the  whole  world."  Indeed,  this  is  the  place  which, 
among  all  the  habitations  of  men,  comes  nearest  to 
the  description  of  the  Moslem  paradise  — 

"  The  people  of  the  Right  Hand! 
Oh,   how   happy    shall   be   the   people    of   the    Right 

Hand!  .  .  . 
In  extended  shade, 
And  by  flowing  waters, 
And  with  abundant  fruits, 
Unfailing,  unforbidden  .  .  . 
Gardens  beneath  whose  shades  the  rivers  flow."  4 

The  prophet  who  sang  thus  of  the  celestial  de- 
lights of  the  Faithful  once  stood,  it  is  said,  on  the 
summit  of  this  sacred  mountain  and  gazed  with  won- 

*  The  Koran,  Sura  56:26f;  61:12. 
[93l 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

dering  admiration,  as  we  are  gazing,  on  the  boun- 
teous splendor  of  the  Garden  of  Damascus.  But 
Mohammed  refused  to  go  down  into  the  city  for  fear 
lest,  having  tasted  the  joys  of  this  earthly  paradise, 
he  might  lose  his  desire  for  the  heavenly. 


[94] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE     PORT     OF      THE     WILDERNESS 

ALTHOUGH  it  is  ninety  miles  by  railway  from 
navigable  water,  Damascus  partakes  of  the 
characteristics  of  a  seaport.  It  is,  in  fact, 
the  port  of  the  wilderness.  Just  to  the  east  of  its 
fertile  "  garden  "  is  the  Syrian  desert,  across  which 
slow  caravans  have  always  been  coming  and  going  — 
traveling  from  the  rich  river-bottoms  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, from  Persia  and  India,  and  even  from  far  dis- 
tant China,  to  bring  the  riches  of  Asia  to  the  over- 
flowing warehouses  of  Damascus.  The  lands  from 
which  the  city  derives  its  prosperity  cannot  compete 
with  European  industries,  and  so  only  a  small  pro- 
portion of  their  products  is  now  sent  westward  across 
the  Mediterranean.  Yet  Damascus  remains  still  the 
metropolis  of  the  desert  peoples.  From  the  view- 
point of  the  peasant  or  Bedouin  Arab,  it  is  a  very 
modern  place;  and  to  the  stranger  who  can  see 
beneath  the  alluring  glamour  of  its  Orientalism,  its 
chief  characteristics  are  abounding  prosperity  and 
noisy  activity.  This  oldest  of  cities  is  no  mere  in- 
teresting ruin  or  historical  pageant.  Even  in  the 
fast-month  of  Ramadan,  its  streets  are  as  crowded 

[95] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

as  the  most  congested  shopping  district  of  London 
or  New  York  or  Paris.1 

The  most  characteristic  feature  of  the  bazaar  is 
its  smell  —  that  peculiar,  inescapable  blending  of 
licorice  and  annis  and  pungent  spices  and  heavy 
perfumes,  combined  with  a  vague  odor  of  age  and 
staleness  which  pervades  the  dust-laden  air,  and 
sometimes  with  an  odor  not  at  all  vague  which  arises 
from  the  filth  of  unswept  streets.  It  is  not  when  I 
"  hear  the  East  a-callin'  "  but  when  I  smell  the  East 
that  the  waves  of  homesickness  sweep  deepest  over 
me.  I  love  the  scent  of  the  bazaar.  Sometimes  I 
catch  a  whiff  of  it  through  the  open  door  of  a  little 
basement  store  in  the  Syrian  Quarter  of  New  York; 
and  in  a  moment  my  thoughts  are  five  thousand  miles 
away  among  the  old  familiar  scenes. 

The  next  most  vivid  impression  of  the  bazaar  is  its 
weird  combination  of  bright  coloring  and  gloom. 
The  narrow,  winding  street  is  guarded  from  the  glar- 
ing sun  by  striped  awnings  and  old  carpets  which 
reach  across  from  house  to  house.  Some  few  of 
the  chief  thoroughfares,  like  the  "  Street  called 

i  Estimates  of  the  population  of  the  city  vary  from  150,000 
to  a  more  probable  300,000.  Of  this  number,  some  10,000  are 
Jews,  30,000  are  "Greek"  and  "Latin"  Christians,  and  a  few 
score  are  Protestants.  At  least  four-fifths  of  the  population  is 
Mohammedan,  and  Islam  is  dominant  and  uncompromising  in 
Damascus,  as  it  is  not  in  cities  like  Constantinople  and  Cairo, 
where  Moslem  fanaticism  is  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  held 
in  check  by  the  constant  menace  of  interference  by  Christian 
powers. 

[96] 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

Straight,"  are  enclosed  by  great  cylindrical  roofs 
of  corrugated  iron.  You  are  indoors  and  yet  out-of- 
doors.  The  light  is  dim ;  but  it  is  daylight,  and  you 
feel  that  all  the  while  the  sun  is  shining  very  brightly 
overhead.  Along  the  fronts  of  the  shops  and  hang- 
ing on  ropes  which  stretch  across  the  street,  are 
shining  brasses  and  pieces  of  inlaid  wood-work  and 
cloths  of  the  most  gorgeous  orient  hues ;  but  the  rear 
of  these  same  shops  is  usually  wrapped  in  impene- 
trable gloom.  Sometimes  there  is  visible  only  a 
square  black  hole  surrounded  by  a  frame  of  gaudy 
silks.  When  you  pass  a  blacksmith's  forge,  with 
shadowy  figures  moving  among  the  sparks  at  the 
back  of  the  inky  darkness,  it  seems  like  a  glimpse  into 
inferno. 

Most  of  the  shops  are  tiny  affairs  only  six  or  eight 
feet  square,  which  open  on  the  street  for  their  entire 
width  and  have  the  floor  raised  to  about  the  height 
of  the  customer's  waist.  The  resemblance  of  a 
bazaar  to  a  long  double  row  of  pigeon-holes  is  in- 
creased by  the  manner  in  which  the  box-like  recesses 
follow  continuously  one  after  the  other,  with  no  door- 
ways between,  as  the  entrance  to  their  upper  stories 
is  by  ladders  in  the  rear. 

In  the  middle  of  his  diminutive  emporium,  the  typi- 
cal Damascus  merchant  sits  all  day  cross-legged, 
smoking  his  water-pipe,  reading  from  a  Koran  placed 
before  him  on  a  little  wooden  book-rest,  and  eter- 
nally fondling  his  beard.  Frequently  he  says  his 

[97] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

prayers.  Sometimes  he  varies  the  monotony  of  a 
dull  day  by  chatting  with  a  fellow-merchant  in  a 
neighboring  shop  fully  ten  feet  away.  The  Jews 
and  Christians  of  the  city  may  be  annoyingly  impor- 
tunate; but  the  Moslems,  who  form  the  large  ma- 
jority, seem  insolently  careless  as  to  whether  the 
passing  stranger  pauses  to  examine  their  goods  or 
not.  Over  their  places  of  business  they  hang  gilded 
invocations  to  "  the  One  who  giveth  sustenance,"  and 
then  leave  matters  entirely  in  His  hands.  If  nothing 
is  sold  all  day,  it  is  the  will  of  Allah:  if  a  customer 
does  come,  it  is  the  will  of  Allah  —  that  he  shall  be 
overcharged  as  much  as  possible. 

Shopping  in  Damascus  is  not  an  operation  to  be 
hurried  through  with  careless  levity.  If  you  appear 
a  promising  customer,  the  merchant  will  set  coffee 
before  you  and,  while  you  and  he  are  drinking  to- 
gether, will  talk  about  anything  under  the  sun  except 
business.  When  you  ask  him  the  price  of  an  article, 
he  may  tell  you  to  keep  it  for  nothing,  just  as  did 
Ephron  the  Hittite  when  Abraham  was  bargaining 
for  the  Cave  of  Machpelah.2 

If,  however,  you  offer  a  fair  amount  for  that  same 

"  gift,"  he  will  protest  that  to  accept  such  a  paltry 

sum  would  necessitate   his   children's   going  hungry 

and  naked.     So  he  names  a  price  about  double  what 

he  expects  to  get,  and  you  suggest  a  sum  equal  to 

half  what  you  are  willing  to  pay.     Then  follow  vo- 

2  Genesis  23:11. 

[98] 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

ciferous  exclamations,  indignant  gesticulations,  and 
sacred  oaths,  while  his  price  slowly  comes  down  and 
yours  slowly  goes  up,  until  at  last  they  almost, 
though  not  quite,  meet.  Neither  will  change  his 
"  last  word  "  by  a  single  piaster.  Negotiations  are 
at  an  end.  You  turn  scornfully  to  leave  the  shop  of 
the  extortioner,  while  the  merchant  commends  his 
business  to  God  and  resignedly  begins  to  wrap  up 
the  goods  and  return  them  to  their  shelves.  He  does 
this  very  deliberately,  however,  and  just  then  —  be- 
cause you  two  are  such  good  friends,  whose  apprecia- 
tion of  noble  character  finds  its  ideal  each  in  the 
other's  life  —  you  decide  to  split  the  difference,  the 
purchase  is  completed,  and  you  part  with  mutual 
protestations  that  only  a  deep,  fraternal  regard 
forces  you  —  and  him  —  to  conclude  the  bargain  at 
such  a  ruinous  figure. 

"  It  is  bad,  it  is  bad,  saith  the  buyer ; 
But  when  he  is  gone  his  way,  then  he  boasteth."  3 

Perhaps  the  shop-keeper  will  still,  however,  detain 
you  for  a  glass  of  sherbet.  If  he  does,  then  you 
have  probably  paid  too  much,  after  all. 

A  friend  of  mine  was  obliged  to  spend  no  less  than 
two  weeks  in  purchasing  a  single  Persian  rug;  but 
during  those  two  weeks  the  price  went  down  ninety 
dollars.     One  winter  I  had  occasion  to  buy,  at  dif- 
ferent   times,    several    small    picture    frames.     They 
3  Proverbs  20:14. 
[99] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

were  all  exactly  the  same  size,  shape  and  material, 
were  obtained  from  the  same  salesman  at  the  same 
shop,  and  in  the  end  I  paid  for  them  the  same  price 
to  a  piaster.  Yet  the  purchase  of  each  one  neces- 
sitated a  half-hour  of  excited  bargaining. 

It  should  be  understood,  however,  that  there  is 
really  nothing  dishonest  about  such  a  procedure  as 
that  described  above ;  for  neither  party  is  misled  in 
the  least  by  the  other's  protestations,  and  neither 
believes  that  he  is  deceiving  the  other.  It  is  just  the 
leisurely,  intensely  personal  Oriental  way  of  doing 
business.  After  you  once  become  used  to  it,  bar- 
gaining in  the  bazaars  is  far  more  full  of  excitement 
and  human  interest  than  buying  something  in  the 
West,  where  fixed  prices  are  distinctly  marked.  If 
you  are  so  crude  as  to  ask  a  Moslem  merchant 
to  tell  under  oath  what  he  paid  for  an  article, 
he  will  often  speak  the  exact  truth.  But  be  sure  to 
swear  him  by  a  formula  which  he  considers  binding. 
Every  detail  of  a  Syrian  business  transaction  is 
embellished  by  one  or  more  of  the  fervent  oaths  of 
the  East.  The  traveler  from  the  Occident,  however, 
needs  only  one :  the  "  word  of  an  Englishman  "  4  is 
still  accepted  at  face  value.  Indeed,  a  generation 
ago,  Moslems  who  would  unblushingly  call  upon  al- 
mighty God  to  witness  to  the  most  patent  falsehoods, 
could  be  trusted  to  speak  the  exact  truth  when  they 

*  This  includes  the  American,  for  all  who  speak  the  English 
language  are  ordinarily  classed  as  Ingleezy. 

[100] 


One  of  the  more  modern  avenues  of  Damascus 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

swore  by  the  beard  of  a  certain  upright  English  mer- 
chant of  Beirut. 

No  picture  can  ever  adequately  represent  the  ba- 
zaar, not  even  a  moving  picture ;  for  besides  the  un- 
ending kaleidoscopic  changes  of  coloring,  as  brightly 
dressed  peddlers  and  purchasers  move  hither  and 
thither,  there  is  a  ceaseless,  deafening,  indescribable 
and  untranslatable  tumult  of  sound.  Yet  to  one  who 
understands  Arabic,  this  is  more  than  noise:  it  is 
music,  poetry  and  romance.  The  hawker  of  each 
commodity  uses  a  peculiarly  worded  appeal  which, 
in  eloquent  circumlocution,  extols  the  virtues  of  his 
wares.  These  calls  are  usually  rhyming;  often  they 
include  one  of  the  ninety-nine  sacred  titles  of  Allah, 
and  frequently  they  are  sung  to  a  set  tune.  Back 
and  forth  through  the  perilously  crowded  streets 
they  go  —  boys  with  great  trays  of  sweetmeats  on 
their  heads,  men  with  tubs  of  pickled  vegetables, 
peasants  bearing  heavy  loads  of  fresh  figs,  water- 
carriers  stooping  low  under  their  goatskin  bottles, 
peddlers  of  cakes  and  nuts  and  sherbets  and  the  nose- 
gays which  the  Syrian  gentleman  loves  to  hold  — 
literally  under  his  nose  —  as  he  strolls  through  the 
city.  All  are  shouting  their  wares.  "  Oh,  thirsty 
one !  "  "  Oh,  father  of  a  family !  "  "  Oh,  Thou  who 
givest  food!"  "Allay  the  heat!"  "Rest  for  the 
throat !  "  When  Abraham  passed  through  Damas- 
cus he  doubtless  heard  these  same  cries. 

If  we  are  driving,  as  is  possible  in  the  wider  ba- 
[101] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

zaars,  our  gallant  coachman  adds  to  the  din  as  he 
proudly  snaps  his  long  whip,  toots  the  strident  auto- 
mobile horn  which  is  now  affixed  to  all  Damascus 
carriages  and,  in  courteous  gentleness  or  bawling 
rage  or  sighing  relief,  keeps  up  an  unintermitting 
flow  of  Arabic  adjuration  to  the  passers-by  whom  he 
almost,  but  never  quite,  runs  down.  "  Look  out  for 
your  back!  Hurry  up,  uncle!  Your  back,  your 
back !  —  may  your  house  be  destroyed !  Your  right, 
lady!  Your  left,  sir!  Slowly,  oh,  inmates  of  the 
harem!  Oh,  pilgrim,  your  back!  Child,  beware! 
Your  back,  my  friend!  Your  back!  YOUR  BACK! 
E-e-eh!  A-a-ah!" 

High  above  the  other  calls  rises  now  and  then  the 
shrill,  nasal  song  of  the  vender  of  sweetened  bread, 
Allah  er-Razeeki  —  "God  is  the  Nourisher!"  A 
half-naked  beggar  changes  his  pathetic  whine  to  a 
lusty  curse  as  he  slinks  out  of  the  way  of  a  gallop- 
ing, shouting  horseman.  Any  one  who  feels  in  the 
mood  kneels  down  anywhere  he  happens  to  be  and 
prays  aloud.  As  a  kind  of  accompaniment  to  the 
vociferous  chorus  there  sounds  the  continuous  tin- 
kling of  the  brass  bowls  which  are  rattled  against 
each  other  by  the  lemonade-sellers.  And  —  very  fre- 
quently in  Damascus  —  there  pierces  through  the 
deafening  tumult  the  thin,  penetrating  chant  of  the 
muezzin  who,  from  his  lofty  minaret  or  from  the 
mosque  door  in  the  crowded,  narrow  street,  calls  to 

[102] 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

the  greedy  bazaar  to  think  on  the  things  that  are  un- 
seen and  eternal. 

The  great  conflagration  of  1911  destroyed  the 
heart  of  the  business  district  by  the  Omayyade 
Mosque,  and  those  who  knew  the  city  of  a  few  years 
ago  find  it  sadly  strange  to  climb  over  the  heaps  of 
dusty  rubbish  which  cover  once  familiar  streets. 
But  during  the  rebuilding,  which  is  progressing  rap- 
idly, there  is  no  appreciable  diminution  of  business, 
and  the  intricate  maze  of  the  bazaars  still  presents 
scenes  of  marvelous  variety  and  endless  fascination. 
There  is  the  Water-pipe  Bazaar,  where  narghileh 
bowls  are  made  out  of  cocoanuts  ornamented  with 
gold  and  silver,  the  Draper's  Bazaar  filled  with 
shoddy  European  stuffs,  the  Saddle  Bazaar  with  its 
brightly  covered  Arabic  saddles  and  gorgeous  ac- 
couterments,  the  almost  forsaken  Bazaar  of  the 
Booksellers,  where  now  hardly  a  half-dozen  poorly 
stocked  booths  hint  at  the  intellectual  conquests  of 
the  Damascus  of  centuries  gone  by,  and  the  Spice 
Market,  whose  long  rows  of  bottles  scent  the  air  with 
their  essences  and  attars.  The  Silk  Bazaar  is  the 
most  brilliant,  and  its  gaudiest  patterns  are  hung 
out  for  the  inspection  of  admiring  Bedouin  visitors. 
The  Second-hand  Bazaar  of  the  auctioneers  is 
commonly  known  as  the  Louse  Market,  not  because 
of  the  uncomplimentary  suspicion  which  first  sug- 
gests itself,  but  from  a  very  small  and  agile  coin 

[103] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

known  by  that  name,  which  is  frequently  used  in 
increasing  the  bids. 

As  we  pass  along  one  street  after  another,  we  see 
open-front  bakers'  shops  where  paper-like  loaves  are 
sold,  still  hot  from  the  oven,  and  confectioners' 
booths  filled  with  all  manner  of  sherbets  and  jellies 
and  delicious  preserved  fruits  and  the  infinite  vari- 
ety of  sweet,  indigestible  pastry  in  which  the  Syri- 
ans delight.  In  one  little  square  there  are  great 
piles  of  thin  apricot  paste  which  look  exactly  like 
bundles  of  brown  paper.  The  merchant  offers  us 
a  sample  to  taste,  but  we  are  not  quite  sure  as  to 
the  quality  of  the  dust  that  has  been  settling  upon 
it  all  the  morning.  A  long  towel  hung  over  yonder 
doorway  indicates  that  it  is  the  entrance  to  a  ham- 
mam  or  public  bath,  within  whose  steaming  court 
we  can  see  brown,  half-naked  forms  reclining  on 
dingy  divans.  The  intricate  lattice-work  of  over- 
hanging balconies  guards  the  harems  of  the  mer- 
chants from  the  vulgar  gaze  of  the  crowds  below. 
This  little  gate,  curtained  by  a  hanging  rug  and 
edged  with  a  line  of  slippers,  leads  from  the  deafen- 
ing tumult  of  the  bazaar  to  the  solemn  quiet  of  a 
cool,  spacious  mosque. 

From  time  immemorial  the  merchant-artisans  of 
Damascus  have  been  united  in  powerful  associations. 
There  is  even  a  guild  of  beggars,  though,  to  do  them 
justice,  these  are  neither  so  numerous  nor  so  impor- 
tunate as  in  most  Syrian  cities.  On  the  other 

[104] 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

hand,  the  curs  which  infest  the  busiest  streets  are 
innumerable  and  are  disgusting  in  appearance  be- 
yond any  other  dogs  I  have  ever  seen.  Yet  these 
sore,  starved  racks  of  bones,  with  hardly  the  energy 
to  get  out  of  the  way  of  a  passing  carriage,  have 
organizations  of  their  own.  At  any  rate,  they  rec- 
ognize definite  boundaries ;  and  a  dog  who  ventures 
outside  the  territory  occupied  by  his  own  clan  does 
so  at  peril  of  his  life.  One  evening  a  friend  of  mine, 
who  is  a  good  mimic,  was  so  unwise  as  to  bark  lus- 
tily just  as  he  entered  our  hotel.  In  a  moment 
every  cur  in  the  district  was  giving  voice ;  and  far 
into  the  night,  as  unhappily  was  all  too  strongly  im- 
pressed upon  us,  they  kept  up  their  vociferous  search 
for  the  unknown  intruder. 

But  it  is  never  quiet  in  Damascus.  Most  Orien- 
tals go  to  bed  very  early.  Jerusalem  is  like  a  city 
of  the  dead  by  half-past  eight  in  the  evening.  The 
Damascenes,  however,  seem  to  need  no  sleep,  and 
the  noises  of  the  streets  never  cease.  The  only  no- 
ticeable change  in  their  volume  is  that,  when  the 
shops  close,  just  before  sunset,  the  tumult  suddenly 
increases.  Then,  hour  after  hour,  you  can  hear  the 
heavy  murmur  of  the  multitude,  broken  occasionally 
by  the  voice  of  someone  singing,  or  by  a  chorus 
of  loud  cheers.  An  interminable  succession  of  songs 
and  marches,  all  of  them  fortissimo  and  in  a  strident 
minor  key,  shatter  what  ought  to  be  the  midnight 
stillness  as  they  rattle  from  phonographs  whose 

[105] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Arabic  records  are  prepared  by  the  German  subsid- 
iary of  an  American  talking-machine  company. 
Very  far  off,  a  dog  lifts  up  his  voice  in  a  faint  howl 
which  starts  a  pandemonium  of  barks  and  growls 
and  yelps  all  over  the  neighborhood.  The  freshen- 
ing breeze  rustles  among  the  orchards ;  then  it  slams  a 
window  shut.  The  bell  of  a  tram-car  rings  sharply ; 
carriage  horns  give  loud  double  toots  which  just  fail 
of  forming  any  known  musical  interval,  and  always 
there  is  the  sound  of  water  —  rushing,  purling,  rip- 
pling, splashing  —  the  eternal  anthem  of  Damascus' 
greatness. 

So  when  his  second  day  in  this  noisy  city  draws 
to  a  close,  the  wise  traveler  decides  that,  as  there  is 
no  use  trying  to  get  to  sleep  early,  he  will  go  out 
and  himself  share  in  the  midnight  enjoyments.  I 
do  not  know  how  many  cafes  there  are  in  Damascus : 
I  should  be  quite  ready  to  believe  anyone  who 
told  me  that  there  were  ten  thousand.  They  are 
said  to  be  the  finest  in  Syria.  Indeed,  the  Damas- 
cenes boast  that  the  first  of  all  coffee-shops  was  estab- 
lished in  their  city,  and  also  that  sherbet  was  invented 
here. 

The  best  cafes  are  situated  beside  the  main  branch 
of  the  Barada.  Those  near  St.  Thomas'  Gate  have 
very  attractive  shaded  gardens,  where  the  tables  are 
set  out  under  spreading  trees  and  are  surrounded 
by  tiny  streams  of  running  water.  An  evening 
visit  to  one  of  these  riverside  resorts  is  a  mem- 

[106] 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

orable  experience,  and  it  is  quite  safe;  for,  unless 
corrupted  by  European  influence,  no  Moslem  ever 
touches  alcoholic  beverages,  and  one  need  therefore 
fear  none  of  the  drunken  roughness  which  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  "  cafes  " —  which  of  course  are  not 
cafes  at  all  —  of  Christian  America.  The  Damas- 
cene seeks  his  recreation  amid  an  atmosphere  of  ease 
and  leisure  and  refined  enjoyment.  If  a  patron 
wishes  to  dream  away  the  whole  evening  over  one 
cup  of  coffee  or  a  five-cent  narghileh,  there  is  no  one 
to  object.  Itinerant  musicians  beguile  the  hours  of 
darkness  with  plaintive  minor  ditties  sung  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  guitar  or  zither;  story-tellers 
spin  endless  fairy  tales  to  circles  of  breathless  listen- 
ers, and  —  alas  !  —  the  tireless  phonograph  roars  its 
brassy  songs.  Many  of  the  regular  habitues  of  the 
place  are  absorbed  in  interminable  games  of  back- 
gammon. Coffee,  fruit  syrups,  pastry,  candy,  nuts, 
cool  water-pipes  and  mild  cigarettes  —  such  are  the 
favorite  refreshments  of  the  fierce,  fanatical  Mos- 
lem! 

As  the  cups  in  which  the  coffee  is  served  are  tiny, 
handleless  things,  hardly  larger  than  a  walnut,  they 
are  usually  set  in  holders  of  filigree  work.  These 
are,  as  a  rule,  made  of  brass,  but  in  homes  of  wealth 
they  may  be  silver  or  even  gold.  The  liquor  is  often 
flavored  with  rose-water  and  is  very  thick  and  sweet, 
though  it  will  be  prepared  murr  if  anyone  has  such 
an  outlandish  taste  as  to  prefer  it  "  bitter."  The 

[107] 


SYRIA,   THE"  LAND    OF   LEBANON 

unpalatable  sediment  which  fills  a  good  third  of  the 
cup  must  on  no  account  be  stirred  up.  Many  a 
stranger  has  found  to  his  cost  that  the  coffee  is 
served  exceedingly  hot;  and  it  is  a  necessity  as  well 
as  a  sign  of  good  breeding  to  keep  the  lips  from 
quite  touching  the  surface  and  to  suck  up  the  drink 
with  a  loud  hissing  noise.  In  a  private  house,  this 
formality  should  by  no  means  be  neglected,  even  if 
the  coffee  has  become  cooled,  as  the  omission  would 
be  equivalent  to  a  criticism  of  the  host. 

Around  the  coffee-pot  centers  the  social  life  of 
the  Moslem  world.  It  has  an  important  place  in 
every  kind  of  ceremonial  and  festive  occasion,  from 
the  circumcision  of  the  child  to  the  funeral  of  the 
old  man.  The  merchant  offers  it  to  his  prospective 
customer.  The  desert  sheikh  starts  his  women  grind- 
ing the  beans  in  a  large  wooden  mortar  as  soon 
as  a  stranger  enters  his  tent.  Not  to  give  coffee  to 
a  guest  would  signify  that  he  was  unwelcome.5  It  is 
invariably  served  at  the  beginning  of  a  call.  Later 

5  Some  years  ago,  our  minister  to  Turkey,  who  had  been 
promised  an  audience  with  Abdul  Hamid,  was  made  to  wait 
half  a  day  in  an  anteroom  of  the  palace  without  being  offered 
co fee.  So  far  as  I  know,  that  fact  was  never  published;  for 
the  American  newspapers  seem  to  have  quite  missed  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  omission,  and  our  representative  himself  ap- 
parently did  not  realize  that  he  had  been  publicly  insulted. 
But  the  experienced  diplomat  who  was  then  in  charge  of  our 
Department  of  State  cabled  the  minister,  in  case  of  further 
affront,  to  leave  Constantinople  immediately. 

[108] 


THE   PORT    OF   THE   WILDERNESS 

on,  sherbet  is  brought  in,  and  then  the  visitor  knows 
that  it  is  time  for  him  to  leave. 

Coffee  sometimes  plays  a  more  serious  part  in 
Eastern  affairs.  Its  heavy  sweetness  disguises 
varied  and  deadly  poisons.  The  bacilli  of  typhoid 
fever  are  said,  in  this  scientific  generation,  to  be 
drunk  unsuspectingly  by  many  a  venturesome  meddler 
in  affairs  of  state.  The  death  penalty  is  seldom  in- 
flicted in  the  Turkish  Empire.  Deposed  ministers 
and  irrepressible  busybodies  and  troublesome  reform- 
ers are  merely  imprisoned  or  exiled.  Often  they  are 
sent  to  Damascus.  Then,  shortly,  they  die  of  indi- 
gestion or  heart  failure. 


[109] 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE      RICHES      OF      DAMASCUS 

THE  great  khans,  or  wholesale  warehouses,  of 
Damascus  lie  in  the  center  of  the  city  near 
the  Omayyade  Mosque.  As  a  rule  they  are  not 
detached  structures,  but  are  hidden  by  the  surround- 
ing shops  and  are  entered  through  tunnels  which 
pierce  the  sides  of  .the  bazaars.  The  finest  of  them 
is  the  Khan  Asad  Pasha,  which  was  erected  a  hundred 
years  ago  by  the  governor  whose  name  it  bears,  and 
is  still  owned  by  his  family.  This  is  one  of  the 
few  really  impressive  pieces  of  Arabic  architecture 
in  Syria,  rich  and  massive,  yet  effectively  adapted 
to  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  intended.  The 
building  is  constructed  of  alternate  courses  of  dark 
brown  and  yellow  limestone,  and  its  principal  en- 
trance is  a  high,  vaulted  "  stalactite  "  gateway  cov- 
ered with  beautiful  carvings.  The  central  court  is 
a  hundred  feet  across  and,  as  one  comes  suddenly 
from  the  dim  light  of  the  crowded  bazaar,  it  seems 
of  an  astounding  brightness  and  spaciousness.  The 
pavement  is  divided  into  squares  by  four  pillars, 
and  from  these  spring  the  arches  of  nine  lofty  domes, 

[no] 


THE   RICHES    OF   DAMASCUS 

which  are  ornamented  with  elaborate  arabesques 
and  pierced  by  a  number  of  small  windows.  On 
the  sides  of  this  great  court,  and  also  on  a  gallery 
above,  are  the  offices  of  wholesale  merchants  and 
brokers,  and  at  the  rear  are  situated  smaller  courts 
and  the  vaulted  storerooms  of  the  khan.  Around 
the  central  fountain  between  the  pillars  of  the  largest 
dome  and  crowding  through  the  gateway  and  throng- 
ing the  street  outside,  a  vociferous  throng  of  mule- 
teers and  camel-drivers  are  unloading  the  caravans 
which  have  come  from  Beirut  on  the  coast  and  from 
northern  Aleppo  and  across  the  desert  from  the 
Euphrates,  bearing  the  choicest  merchandise  of  the 
East,  and  some  few  machine-made  products  of  the 
West,  to  swell  "  the  riches  of  Damascus."  A 

There  are  real  merchant-princes  in  this  busy  trad- 
ing-center, and  some  of  them  live  in  royal  splendor. 
The  houses  of  the  Damascus  rich  are  truly  palatial; 
but  the  stranger  would  never  guess  it  from  their 
exteriors,  for  the  Syrian  home  has  no  elaborate 
facade  and  pretentious  approach,  such  as  the  Franks 
delight  to  build.  The  prime  object  of  the  architect 
is  to  achieve  the  most  absolute  retirement  for  his 
patron.  No  window  ever  looks  into  that  of  a  neigh- 
boring residence ;  no  passer-by  ever  glimpses  through 
an  opened  door  the  interior  of  a  private  dwelling. 
If  the  Englishman's  house  is  his  castle,  the  Syrian's 

is  his  retreat. 

i  Isaiah   8:4. 
[in] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

You  pass  along  a  dirty  alley  to  an  insignificant 
wooden  door  in  at  high  stone  wall.  Just  inside  is 
the  porter's  cell ;  then  comes  a  dark,  vaulted  passage- 
way, which  either  has  a  sharp  bend  in  it  or  else  is 
screened  at  the  farther  end ;  then  — 

The  open  court  which  you  enter  may  be  three 
hundred  feet  across.  Its  tessellated  pavement  is  of 
white  marble  inlaid  with  arabesques  of  darker  stone. 
In  the  center  is  a  fountain  with  designs  of  colored 
limestone  set  into  its  marble  walls.  Potted  flowers 
bloom  luxuriantly  in  the  warm  sunlight,  and  birds 
sing  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  splashing  water. 
In  the  grateful  shade  of  small  fruit  trees  are  placed 
bright  rugs  and  soft  cushions  and  tabarets  made  of 
rare  woods  inlaid  with  mother-of-pearl.  The  many 
lofty  windows  in  the  red  and  yellow  striped  walls  of 
the  surrounding  dwelling  are  curtained  with  gor- 
geous silks. 

At  one  side,  usually  the  south,  a  spacious  alcove 
reaches  to  the  height  of  the  second-story  ceiling. 
This  liwdn,  or  drawing-room,  is  entirely  open  to  the 
court;  but  its  floor  is  raised  a  foot  or  two  above  the 
pavement  outside,  and  its  decorations  are  as  rich 
and  elaborate  as  if  it  were  a  huge,  glittering  jewel- 
box.  No  figures  of  men  or  animals  are  seen,  for 
Moslems  are  forbidden  to  make  representations  of 
any  living  creature  in  the  heavens  above  or  the  earth 
beneath  or  the  waters  under  the  earth ;  2  yet  it  is 
2  According  to  the  most  strict  Moslem  teachers,  the  com- 
[112] 


THE   RICHES   OF   DAMASCUS 

astonishing  what  splendid  effects  are  evolved  by 
their  architects  from  the  limited  elements  of  Arabic 
script,  geometric  designs,  foliage,  fruits  and  flowers. 
In  the  liwdn  this  arabesque  ornamentation  is  pro- 
fuse and  elegant.  The  lower  walls  are  built  of  al- 
ternate layers  of  differently  colored  stones,  into 
which  are  set  mosaic  panels  as  intricate  in  design  as 
the  priceless  rugs  which  lie  upon  the  marble  pave- 
ment. The  woodwork  of  the  room  is  all  minutely 
carved,  and  inlaid  with  bits  of  glass  and  mother-of- 
pearl  and  sometimes  even  with  jewels.  The  upper 
walls  are  frescoed  in  blue  and  green  and  gold,  and 
from  the  gilded  beams  of  the  ceiling  hang  chande- 
liers of  silver  and  beaten  brass. 

This  half  out-of-doors  alcove  gives  access  to  the 
rooms  which  we  should  think  of  as  being  really  in 
the  house.  Some  of  these  may  be  even  more  lav- 
ishly decorated  than  the  Uwan,  and  all  are  com- 
fortably furnished  —  according  to  the  Syrian  idea 
of  comfort.  Into  the  apartments  of  the  ladies,  how- 
ever, no  male  guest  may  enter.  These  are  hareem 
—  "  forbidden."  Indeed,  it  is  very  likely  that  they 
are  in  a  separate  building,  which  opens  on  an  inner 
court  whose  existence  the  casual  visitor  does  not  even 
suspect.  No  men  save  her  nearest  relatives  are  sup- 
posed ever  to  look  upon  the  unveiled  face  of  a  Mos- 
lem woman.  This  prohibition,  however,  is  of  neces- 

mandment  of  the  Prophet  (the  Koran,  sura  5:92,  etc.)  would 
prohibit  the  use  of  even  the  carved  figures  of  the  chess  knights. 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

sity  little  observed  among  the  poor,  hard-working 
peasants  and  the  desert  Bedouins ;  and  in  the  cities 
the  universal  characteristics  of  the  female  sex  have 
not  been  entirely  obliterated  by  the  law  of  Islam. 
An  unusually  thin  gauze  almost  always  reveals  a 
remarkably  beautiful  face,  and  I  have  seen  veils  co- 
quettishly  dropped  —  of  course  by  accident  —  even 
in  the  bazaars  of  fanatical  Damascus.  Yet  among 
the  upper  classes  the  thought  of  social  intercourse 
between  the  sexes  is  so  repellent  that  no  good  Mos- 
lem ever  willingly  alludes  to  his  wife.  If  he  is  ab- 
solutely forced  to  speak  of  her,  he  apologizes  by  say- 
ing Ajallak! — "May  God  lift  you  up!" — that  is, 
from  the  degradation  of  having  to  hear  such  a  thing 
mentioned.  He  uses  the  identical  expression  when 
he  refers  to  anything  else  unfit  to  be  spoken  of  in 
conversation  between  gentlemen.  "  Men  are  supe- 
rior to  women  on  account  of  the  qualities  with  which 
God  hath  gifted  the  one  above  the  other,"  said  the 
Prophet.3  There  is  no  place  for  female  suffrage  in 
the  world  of  Islam! 

If  we  think  of  Damascus  as  the  port  of  the  desert, 
then  its  wharves  lie  along  the  Meidan.     This  nar- 
row handle  of  the  spoon-shaped  city,  which  stretches 
far  southward  on  both  sides  of  the  Derb  el-Haj  or 
"  Pilgrim  Road  "  to  Mecca,  is  a  comparatively  mod- 
ern quarter;  but  it  is  most  akin  to  the  wilderness, 
and  its  one  long  avenue  is  thronged  with  Children 
3  The  Koran,  sura  4:38. 
[114] 


THE   RICHES   OF   DAMASCUS 

of  the  East  who  have  journeyed  far  to  visit  what  they 
firmly  believe  to  be  the  world's  largest  and  most  beau- 
tiful city.  Long  caravans,  weary,  dusty  and  heav- 
ily laden,  are  led  into  the  Meidan  by  wild-look- 
ing, shaggy  Bedouins.  A  little  flock  of  sheep 
on  its  way  to  the  slaughter-house  is  driven  by  no 
gentle  shepherd,  but  a  black-bearded  giant  armed 
with  rifle  and  dagger  and  club.  Groaning  camels 
kneel  in  the  street  while  immense  sacks  of  wheat  are 
untied  from  their  backs  and  rolled  into  the  vaults  of 
the  grain-merchants.  We  see  here  the  choicest  mares 
of  Arabia  ridden  by  tall,  stalwart  Hauran  Druses 
whose  cruel,  handsome  faces,  wrapped  around  with 
flowing  headgears  of  spotless  white,  look  down  upon 
the  hurrying  crowds  with  a  haughty  contempt. 
Yonder  group  of  strangely  dressed  fellows  with  red 
and  white  cloths  bound  about  their  brows  are  Chal- 
deans from  Baghdad.  The  shops  here  seem  very 
poor  and  shabby  in  comparison  with  the  bazaars 
of  the  older  quarters;  but  the  simple  country  folk, 
and  even  the  proud  Bedouin  Arabs,  stand  spellbound 
before  the  astounding  wealth  and  bewildering  tumult 
of  the  great  city. 

The  south  end  of  the  Meidan  is  known  as  the  Gate 
of  Allah  —  though  it  has  no  gate ;  for  it  is  here, 
amid  impressive  ceremonies,  that  there  starts  the  an- 
nual Pilgrimage  to  Mecca.4  Back  to  the  same  Bab 

4  In  this  eifete  generation,  however,  those  who  have  the  in- 
clination and  the  money  may  take  the  sacred  railway  as  far 

[US] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Allah  straggle,  four  months  later,  a  sick  and  ex- 
hausted remnant  who  have  survived  the  journey  to 
the  holy  city,  to  bear  henceforth  the  envied  title  of 
haj  or  "  pilgrim."  Then  cholera  or  plague  breaks 
out  with  renewed  virulence. 

Of  the  ancient  fortifications  of  Damascus,  only  a 
short,  ruinous  piece  now  remains.  The  city  is  sur- 
rounded, between  the  houses  and  the  orchards,  by 
an  almost  unbroken  succession  of  cemeteries.  In  the 
burying  ground  of  the  Orthodox  Greeks  is  the  small, 
unimpressive  tomb  of  St.  George,  who  is  said  to  have 
assisted  the  Apostle  Paul  in  his  escape  over  the  wall. 
This  cannot,  of  course,  be  the  same  St.  George  who 
killed  the  dragon,  as  the  hero  of  that  famous  exploit 
was  not  born  until  nearly  three  hundred  years  after 
the  time  of  Paul. 

In  the  large  Moslem  cemeteries  at  the  southeast 
of  the  city  are  the  tombs  of  Mohammed's  muezzin, 
two  of  his  nine  wives,  and  his  favorite  child,  Fatima. 
Not  far  from  the  sepulcher  of  the  Prophet's 
daughter,  though  outside  of  the  cemetery,  is  buried 
an  unfortunate  Jew  who  aspired  to  the  hand  of 
Fatima.  The  presumptuous  lover  is  said  to  have 
been  stoned  to  death,  and  his  grave  is  now  entirely 
hidden  under  a  great  heap  of  the  rocks  which  pass- 
as  Medina,  and  for  many  years  the  majority  of  the  pilgrims 
from  outside  of  Syria  have  traveled  by  steamer  to  Jeddah, 
the  seaport  of  Mecca  —  under  the  direction  of  an  English  tour- 
ist agency! 

[n6] 


THE   RICHES    OF   DAMASCUS 

ing  Moslems  still  cast  upon  it  as  a  sign  of  their  con- 
tempt. 

Just  outside  of  Damascus,  also,  is  a  sad  house  of 
"  life  more  terrible  than  death."  It  was  once,  they 
say,  the  residence  of  proud  Naaman,  and  it  is  still 
tenanted  by  lepers  who,  alas,  have  known  no  Elisha 
and  washed  in  no  healing  Jordan.  My  Syrian 
friends  were  afraid  even  to  enter  its  court,  but  I 
talked  with  eight  of  the  thirty  or  forty  inmates. 
Some  were  voiceless  and  shapeless  —  grotesque,  hor- 
rible caricatures  of  humanity.  But  there  was  still  a 
"  little  maid "  in  the  House  of  Naaman.  Miriam 
was  a  pretty,  slender  girl,  just  beginning  to  burst 
into  the  bloom  of  early  Eastern  adolescence.  She 
seemed  the  very  incarnation  of  health  and  youth- 
ful joy,  and  could  hardly  stop  laughing  long  enough 
for  me  to  take  her  photograph.  Yet  I  could  not 
laugh  with  her;  for  on  the  rich  brown  of  her  cheek 
was  a  tiny  pinkish  swelling,  and  close  beside  her 
graceful  form  crouched  an  awful  figure,  loathsome, 
unsmiling  and  unwomanly,  like  which  she  would  some 
day  be. 

Over  the  now  closed  Kisan  Gate  at  the  southeast 
corner  of  the  city  wall  is  a  small,  bricked-up  win- 
dow, through  which  tradition  says  that  St.  Paul  was 
let  down  in  a  basket.  Unfortunately  for  the  story, 
this  part  of  the  fortification  dates  from  the  Turkish 
occupation.  The  bend  of  the  wall  includes,  however, 
as  it  probably  has  always  done,  the  Jewish  Quarter. 

["7] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

The  Hebrews  of  Damascus  are  unique  among  their 
coreligionists  of  Palestine  and  Syria  in  that  they 
are  not  comparatively  recent  immigrants  drawn  back 
to  the  land  of  their  fathers  by  Zionist  ideals,  but  are 
descended  from  ancestors  who  settled  here  in  very  an- 
cient times.5  Some  of  them  bear  family  names  which 
can  be  read  in  the  earliest  census  lists  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Many  of  them  are  very  estimable  peo- 
ple ;  but  I  cannot  describe  the  quarter  where  they 
live,  further  than  to  state  that  it  is  the  most  filthy 
and  malodorous  place  I  have  yet  visited.  I  am  not 
especially  squeamish ;  I  have  often,  for  the  sake  of 
the  human  interest  found  there,  traveled  in  Mediter- 
ranean steerages  and  lived  in  the  slums  of  great  cap- 
itals ;  but  after  a  brief  glimpse  of  the  Jewish  Quarter 
of  Damascus,  I  beat  an  ignominious  retreat.  There 
are  said  to  be  houses  there  whose  interiors  are  won- 
derfully beautiful ;  but  I  am  not  going  back  to  see 
them. 

There  are  in  all  five  "  quarters  "  in  Damascus : 
the  Christian  and  the  Jewish  at  the  east,  the  peasant 
market  of  the  Meidan  at  the  south,  the  suburb  of  el- 
Amara  north  of  the  Barada,  and  the  Moslem  heart 
of  the  city.  The  "  Street  called  Straight,"  6  which 

s  See  further  the  author's  The  Real  Palestine  of  To-day, 
chapter  VII. 

e  Acts  9:11.  The  ancient  name  has  survived,  or  possibly  has 
been  revived,  and  the  thoroughfare  is  still  called  Derb  el- 
Mustakim  or  "  Straight  Street."  Its  more  common  name,  how- 
ever, is  Suk  et-Tawileh,  the  "  Long  Bazaar." 

[118] 


THE   RICHES   OF   DAMASCUS 

cuts  across  the  center  of  the  bazaar  district  from 
east  to  west,  may  roughly  be  considered  the  dividing 
line  between  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  Quarters. 
The  flippant  jest  to  the  effect  that  the  writer  of  the 
Acts  said  only  that  the  thoroughfare  was  "  called  " 
straight,  is  hardly  justified  by  the  facts.  This  is, 
in  fact,  the  straightest,  longest  street  in  all  Damas- 
cus, as  well  as  one  of  the  widest.  It  was  once  di- 
vided into  three  parallel  roadways  by  Corinthian  col- 
onnades, some  few  remains  of  which  can  still  be 
found.  To-day  it  is  covered  for  half  its  length  with 
a  high,  arching  metal  roof,  and  contains  many  of 
the  largest  and  most  modern  stores  in  the  city. 

Beside  this  busy  bazaar  the  Damascus  Moslems 
show  the  tomb  of  the  disciple  Ananias,  whose  memory 
they  hold  in  great  respect.  His  reputed  residence, 
which  lies  some  distance  away  in  the  center  of  the 
Christian  Quarter,  is  in  charge  of  Latin  monks.  All 
that  remains  of  the  house  is  a  low,  cave-like  chapel, 
twenty  or  more  feet  below  the  street.  By  itself, 
however,  this  fact  furnishes  no  argument  against  the 
correctness  of  the  location ;  for  the  level  of  every 
crumbling,  undrained  Syrian  city  constantly  rises 
century  by  century. 

Turning  now  into  the  Moslem  Quarter,  we  pass 
through  a  tasteful  little  garden,  closely  planted  with 
shade  trees,  and  enter  an  unpretentious  building. 
Here  rests  one  of  the  greatest  Moslem  heroes  and 
the  most  formidable  opponent  of  the  Crusaders  — 

[119] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

the  invincible  Salah  ed-Din,  whose  sonorous  name 
we  Franks  pronounce  "  Saladin."  It  seems  very 
strange  that  the  tomb  of  this  valiant  champion  of 
Islam  was  long  unhonored,  if  not  entirely  unknown, 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Damascus,  until  it  was  discov- 
ered fifty  years  ago  by  an  American  missionary. 
The  original  casket  of  walnut  has  since  been  re- 
placed by  an  exquisitely  carved  marble  sarcopha- 
gus, upon  which  lies  a  cover  of  green  silk.  In  a 
niche  of  the  wall  at  the  foot  of  the  tomb  now  hangs 
the  large  bronze  wreath  given  by  the  German  Em- 
peror in  memory  of  his  visit  to  Damascus.  One 
hopes  that  it  was  a  Christian  spirit  of  forgiveness 
which  prompted  the  placing  of  a  Maltese  cross  on  this 
tribute  to  the  Crusaders'  greatest  foeman.  But  as 
soon  as  the  Christian  emblem  was  noticed  by  the  cus- 
todian of  the  tomb,  the  wreath  was  removed  from  its 
original  position  on  the  sarcophagus. 

The  one  notable  ancient  building  in  Damascus  is 
the  great  mosque  of  Neby  Yahya  or  "  St.  John,"  bet- 
ter known  to  the  Western  world  as  the  Omayyade 
Mosque.  The  site  where  this  stands  has  probably 
always  been  marked  by  a  place  of  worship,  and  the 
present  structure  is  some  of  those  immemorial  reli- 
gious edifices  which,  so  far  as  we  definitely  know, 
was  never  built,  but  only  rebuilt.  It  was  doubtless 
here  that  there  stood  the  House  of  Rimmon  in  which 
Naaman,  captain  of  the  host  of  the  king  of  Syria, 

[120] 


The  street  called  Straight 


THE   RICHES   OF   DAMASCUS 

bowed  down  with  his  royal  matser.7  About  the  year 
400  A.  D.  the  then  Roman  temple  was  transformed 
into  the  Church  of  St.  John  the  Baptist.  When 
Damascus  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Omayyade  Dy- 
nasty in  the  seventh  century,  the  Christian  house  of 
worship  was  converted  into  a  mosque  of  such  mirac- 
ulous splendor  that  the  vast  multitude  of  human  art- 
ists and  artisans  who  labored  upon  it  were  later  be- 
lieved to  have  been  assisted  by  the  genii.  All  Syria 
was  ransacked  for  ancient  columns  to  adorn  the  new 
structure.  The  pavement  was  of  the  most  expensive 
marbles,  the  prayer-niches  and  pulpits  were  set  with 
jewels,  the  carved  wooden  ceiling  was  inlaid  with  pre- 
cious metals,  and  six  hundred  hanging  lamps  of  solid 
gold  cast  their  mellow  light  upon  the  exquisite  mo- 
saic decorations.  Since  then,  the  building  has  been 
burned  and  burned  again,  and  at  each  restoration 
has  lost  something  of  its  former  magnificence.  Yet 
still  it  ranks  with  St.  Sophia  of  Constantinople,  the 
Dome  of  the  Rock  at  Jerusalem  and  the  Sacred 
Mosque  of  Mecca,  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  Moslem 
sanctuaries. 

Time  would  fail  to  tell  of  its  size  and  splendor, 
its  holy  impressiveness  to  Moslem  eyes,  and  the  in- 
spiring views  from  its  lofty  minarets.  In  its  great 
court  rise  the  Dome  of  the  Hours  and  the  Dome  of 
the  Fountain,  which  is  believed  to  mark  a  point  on 

7  II  Kings  5:18. 
[121] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

the  Pilgrim  Route  exactly  half-way  between  Con- 
stantinople and  Mecca,  and  the  Dome  of  the  Treas- 
ure, where,  hidden  jealously  from  infidel  eyes,  are 
kept  the  sacred  books  and  the  records  of  the  mosque. 
Above  tower  three  minarets,  which  are  known  as 
the  Western,  the  Bride's  and  —  strange  as  this  name 
may  at  first  seem  —  the  Minaret  of  Jesus.  The 
Moslems,  however,  believe  that  'Isa,  as  they  call  Him, 
was  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  prophets,  hardly,  if 
at  all,  inferior  to  Mohammed  himself ;  8  and  the  "  Son 
of  Mary  "  is  held  in  unusual  reverence  by  the  inhab- 
itants of  Damascus,  who  say  that  He  will  stand  upon 
this  minaret  at  the  Last  Judgment. 

The  mosque  itself  extends  along  the  entire  south- 
ern side  of  the  court.  I  know  of  no  other  non-Gothic 
structure  which  seems  so  well  fitted  to  uplift  one's 
thoughts  in  solemn,  spiritual  worship  of  the  unseen 

s  Jesus  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  Koran  as  a  prophet, 
though  His  divinity  is  denied  and  the  Christian  Trinity  is 
misunderstood  by  Mohammed  as  consisting  of  the  Father,  Son 
and  Virgin  Mary.  Characteristic  passages  are:  "O  Mary! 
Verily  God  announces  to  thee  the  Word  from  Him:  his  name 
shall  be  Messiah  Jesus  the  Son  of  Mary,  illustrious  in  this 
world  and  in  the  next,  and  one  of  those  who  have  near  ac- 
cess to  God.  And  He  will  teach  him  the  Book,  and  the  Wis- 
dom, and  the  Law,  and  the  Evangel,  and  he  shall  be  an  apostle 
to  the  Children  of  Israel"  (Sura  3:40,  43).  But— "It  be- 
seemeth  not  God  to  beget  a  son"  (Sura  19:36).  "God  shall 
say,  O  Jesus,  Son  of  Mary,  hast  thou  said  unto  mankind,  Take 
me  and  my  mother  as  two  gods,  besides  God?"  (Sura  5:116). 
"Jesus  is  no  more  than  a  servant  whom  We  favored"  (Sura 
43:59). 

[122] 


THE   RICHES    OF   DAMASCUS 

God.  Here  are  no  confusing  chapels,  no  gaudy  pic- 
tures or  distracting  statues,  no  gilded  altar  lit  by 
smoking  candles,  no  thin  blue  clouds  of  slowly  rising 
incense.  All  is  clean,  bright,  commodious,  and  yet 
of  an  appropriate  richness  and  beauty.  A  careful 
inspection  shows  that  the  architects  used  the  ground- 
plan  of  a  basilica  with  aisles  and  transepts ;  but,  in 
spite  of  the  two  rows  of  columns  and  the  heavier  pil- 
lars which  support  the  central  "  Dome  of  the  Eagle," 
the  chief  and  lasting  impression  of  the  mosque  is  its 
ample,  unbroken  spaciousness. 

The  building  is  larger  even  than  the  visitor  first 
thinks:  a  hundred  and  fifty  paces  will  hardly  take 
him  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other.  Its  stone  floor 
is  entirely  covered  by  rugs,  whose  variegated  patterns 
have  worn  to  a  dull,  somber  tint.  From  the  lofty 
ceiling  a  multitude  of  lamps  and  several  gigantic 
chandeliers  are  hung  by  long  chains,  so  low  that 
they  just  clear  the  head  of  a  tall  man.  Be- 
tween two  of  the  columns  stands  a  lavishly  deco- 
rated, domed  structure  which  is  said  to  contain  the 
head  of  John  the  Baptist,  after  whom  the  mosque 
is  named.  The  shrine  is  about  the  size  of  the  Chapel 
of  the  Sepulcher  at  Jerusalem,  but  it  seems  smaller 
on  account  of  the  far  larger  building  which  surrounds 
it.  In  the  south  wall  of  the  mosque  —  toward 
Mecca  —  are  four  shallow  prayer-niches,  and  near 
the  middle  of  this  side  stands  a  tall,  graceful  pulpit, 
whose  minute  and  elaborate  inlays  of  silver  and  ivory 

[123] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

and  mother-of-pearl  make  it  a  marvel  of  chaste  rich- 
ness. Unlike  all  Oriental  churches  and  most  other 
mosques,  there  is  comparatively  little  gold  used  in 
the  decoration  of  this  great  building.  The  prevailing 
colors  are  cool  white  and  blue  and  silver,  and  the 
really  immense  amount  of  mosaic  and  inlaid  work 
seems  hardly  more  than  delicate  tracery  upon  the 
broad,  unbroken  surfaces. 

Such  is  the  Great  Mosque  when  it  is  empty,  a 
fitting  place  for  quiet  communion  and  solemn  con- 
templation of  the  vastness  and  unhurried  power  of 
the  Almighty.  But  when  you  behold  this  same 
building  thronged  with  strangely  garbed,  proud,  in- 
tellectual-looking and  intensely  devout  men — 
women  are  seldom  seen  in  mosques  —  you  feel  the 
grip  of  something  portentous,  irresistible,  relent- 
less. Long  lines  of  turbaned  figures  facing  toward 
the  holy  city  of  Arabia,  now  bending  low  together 
like  a  field  of  wheat  swept  by  the  summer  breeze,  now 
standing  erect  with  arms  outstretched  toward  Allah 
the  Merciful  and  Compassionate,  reciting  their  con- 
fession of  faith  in  shrill,  quick  tones  which  lose  their 
individuality  in  a  tremendous  momentum  of  sound 
like  the  wave-beat  of  the  sea  —  these  thousands  of 
worshipers  have  firm  hold  on  a  great  truth,  though 
it  be  but  a  half-truth;  they  believe  in  their  religion 
with  an  impregnable,  unquestioning  confidence,  and 
they  render  to  its  precepts  an  implicit  obedience 
such  as  is  not  enforced  by  any  Christian  sect  in  the 

[124]   ' 


THE   RICHES   OF   DAMASCUS 

world.  They  would  gladly  die  for  the  faith  of  Is- 
lam, and  nothing  but  the  strong  restraint  of  Euro- 
pean armaments  holds  them  back  from  again  raising 
the  standard  of  the  Prophet  and  setting  forth  on  a 
new  jahad,  or  holy  war,  in  obedience  to  the  sacred 
mandate,  "  When  ye  encounter  the  unbelievers, 
strike  off  their  heads  until  ye  have  made  a  great 
slaughter  among  them.  .  .  .  As  for  the  infidels,  let 
them  perish,  and  their  works  shall  God  bring  to 
nought.  .  .  .  And  their  dwelling  the  hell  fire!  .  .  . 
Be  not  faint-hearted  then,  and  invite  not  the  infidels 
to  peace !  "  9 

Be  he  preacher  or  statesman,  that  man  is  a  fool 
and  blind  who  does  not  realize  the  tremendous  vital- 
ity and  undiminished  strength  of  Mohammedanism, 
the  power  instinct  in  its  half-truths,  and  the  unsleep- 
ing menace  of  its  essential  antagonism  to  all  the 
"  infidel  "  world.  Politically,  Islam  is  being  rapidly 
shorn  of  its  power ;  but  as  a  religion  —  a  religion 
for  which  men  will  cheerfully  give  their  lives  — 
it  has  lost  no  whit  of  its  potency.  As  the  cry  of  the 
muezzin  echoes  across  the  earth  to-day  from  Japan 
to  Gibraltar,  there  are,  not  fewer,  but  many  millions 
more  who  obey  its  call  than  there  were  four  cen- 
turies ago  when  Mohammed  II.  hurled  his  Turkish 
regiments  against  the  ramparts  of  a  then  Christian 
Constantinople. 

The  Omayyade  Mosque,  as  has  been  said,  was  once 
»The  Koran,  sura  47:4,  9,  13,  37. 
[125] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

a  church.  In  the  marble  wall  beside  its  most  beauti- 
ful prayer-niche  is  set  a  large  mosaic  panel,  among 
whose  intricate  geometric  traceries  there  stand  out 
distinctly  three  large  Maltese  crosses.  The  Moslem 
artist  apparently  copied  the  design  from  some  ear- 
lier decoration  without  realizing  that  he  was  includ- 
ing the  hated  symbol  of  Christianity.  So  the  wor- 
shipers in  the  Great  Mosque  who  face  towards  Mecca 
face  also  the  Cross ! 

But  the  strangest  feature  of  this  ancient  sanctu- 
ary is  seldom  viewed  by  travelers ;  for  it  is  hard  to 
reach,  and  dragomans  are  averse  to  taking  the  neces- 
sary trouble.  You  must  go  to  the  Joiners'  Bazaar, 
which  lies  just  south  of  the  mosque,  and  borrow  a 
long  ladder.  Setting  this  up  in  the  busy  street, 
you  then  climb  through  a  small  hole  which  has  been 
broken  in  the  wall  just  under  the  roof  of  the  covered 
bazaar,  and  step  out  upon  a  dusty  housetop.  Here 
is  seen  a  bit  of  an  old  stone  portal,  elaborately 
carved  with  leaves  and  flowers,  and  bearing  on  its 
lintel  the  unexpected  Greek  inscription,  standing  out 
clearly  in  capital  letters  — 

THY  KINGDOM,  O  CHRIST,  IS  AN  EVERLASTING  KING- 
DOM, 

AND  THY  DOMINION  ENDURETH  THROUGHOUT  ALL 
GENERATIONS. 

It  is  a  startling,  suggestive  sentence  to  read  upon 

[126] 


THE   RICHES   OF   DAMASCUS 

the  wall  of  the  greatest  mosque  of  fanatical  Moslem 
Damascus.  But  you  have  to  get  up  on  the  house- 
tops before  you  can  read  the  promise  that  is  written 
there. 


[127] 


CHAPTER  X 

THE      DESERT      CAPITAL 

JUST  half-way  along  the  ancient  caravan  route 
which  runs  northeast  from  Damascus  to  the  Eu- 
phrates River  are  the  ruins  of  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  cities  of  history;  for  here,  in  the  midst 
of  the  desert,  Palmyra  attained  a  wonderful  degree 
of  wealth  and  culture,  and  a  military  power  which 
for  a  time  rivaled  that  of  Rome  itself. 

The  road  thither  is  nearly  always  in  the  desert. 
This  is  not,  however,  a  level  waste  of  sand ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  often  quite  a  hilly  country,  where  for 
hours  at  a  time  the  traveler  passes  along  narrow 
valleys  between  steep,  rugged  heights.  The  trail 
has  been  beaten  so  hard  by  the  tread  of  innumerable 
caravans  that  one  could  ride  all  the  way  to  Palmyra 
on  a  bicycle.  In  fact,  tourist  agents  used  sometimes 
to  take  parties  there  by  automobile.  But  this  prac- 
tice was  soon  abandoned,  because  break-downs  were 
frequent,  and  there  were  no  garages  where  repairs 
might  be  made.  Our  own  party  traveled  on  horse- 
back, with  the  heavy  luggage  carried  by  several 
donkeys  and  one  very  lively  pack-camel  who  took  adj 

[128] 


THE   DESERT   CAPITAL 


vantage  of  every  possible  opportunity  to  run  away 
across  the  desert. 

However  you  may  go  to  Palmyra,  it  is  not  an 
easy  journey.  In  summer  the  sun  is  fearfully  hot, 
and  in  winter  the  wilderness  wind  is  piercingly  cold ; 
the  water  along  the  route,  while  perhaps  not  actually 
unhealthful,  is  warm  and  evil-tasting  and  full  of  ani- 
mal life;  unless  you  carry  your  own  tent  you  must 
sleep  in  hovels  which  are  filthy  and  insect-ridden, 
and  marauding  bands  of  Bedouins  hover  about,  watch- 
ing for  a  chance  to  rob  the  luckless  traveler. 

Two  days'  journey  from  Damascus,  near  the  an- 
cient and  now  very  squalid  village  of  Karyatein,  are 
a  number  of  ruins  which  date  from  Grseco-Roman 
times.  One  of  these,  an  extensive  sanitarium,  is 
known  as  the  "  Bath  of  Balkis  " —  the  traditional 
name  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  Within  the  enclosure 
is  a  vaulted  room  with  a  paved  floor,  in  the  middle  of 
which  an  opening  some  ten  inches  in  diameter  sends 
forth  a  current  of  moist,  hot,  sulphurous  air.  The 
heat  of  this  room  was  so  suffocating  that  we  could 
endure  it  only  for  a  moment;  but  the  air  is  believed 
to  be  beneficial  for  certain  diseases,  and  in  Roman 
days  the  place  was  very  popular  as  a  health  resort. 

From  Karyatein  the  trail  strikes  across  a  broad 
plain  between  two  mountain  ranges.  This  plain  is 
about  fifty  miles,  or  eighteen  camel-hours,  long,  and 
its  springs  are  very  few  and  very  poor.  The  Syrian 
Desert  shows  no  vegetation  in  summer  except  a  low 

[129] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

salsolaceous  thorn-bush,  which  the  Arabs  burn  for 
its  soda  ash.  This  plant  is  called  al-kali,  whence 
comes  our  word  "  alkali."  It  was  formerly  exten- 
sively used  in  the  manufacture  of  soap ;  but  on  ac- 
count of  the  importation  of  cheaper  materials  it 
no  longer  has  any  commercial  value. 

In  the  middle  of  the  day  the  heat  was  intense.  Our 
heads  were  protected  from  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun 
by  thick  pith  helmets,  but  the  reflection  of  the  cloud- 
less sky  upon  the  whitish  marl  of  the  plain  scorched 
our  faces  and  the  flies  were  a  torment  to  all  except 
the  camel,  whose  thick  hide  seemed  proof  against  their 
attacks. 

We  had  planned  to  replenish  our  canteens  at  Ain 
el-Wu'ul;  but  the  wells  there  proved  to  be  choked 
with  locusts,  and  at  Ain  el-Beida,  which  we  reached 
after  fourteen  hours  in  the  saddle,  we  found  the  wa- 
ter so  strongly  impregnated  with  sulphur  that  it 
tasted  like  a  dose  of  warm  medicine.  This  was  the 
last  spring  in  the  district,  however,  so  we  had  no 
choice  but  to  drink  the  nauseating  stuff. 

A  small  garrison  of  Turkish  soldiers  was  stationed 
in  this  out-of-the-way  place  to  protect  caravans 
against  the  Bedouins,  who  roam  the  desert  in  the 
hope  of  plundering  unwary  travelers.  These  rob- 
ber tribes  view  their  nefarious  occupation  as  a  legit- 
imate business,  a  feature  of  desert  life  which  has  be- 
come, so  to  speak,  legalized  by  immemorial  custom. 

[130] 


THE    DESERT    CAPITAL 


They  regard  the  traveler  exactly  as  the  hunter  does 
his  prey  —  a  bounty  sent  by  Providence,  which  it 
would  be  ungrateful  for  them  not  to  accept.  They 
will  strip  their  victim  to  the  skin,  but  are  careful 
not  to  take  his  life  unless  resistance  is  offered.  They 
leave  him  naked  in  the  wilderness  under  the  protection 
of  Allah,  who  must  take  the  responsibility,  should  the 
poor  fellow  perish  from  hunger  and  thirst  and  ex- 
posure. 

Early  the  next  morning  we  saw  a  band  of  such 
Arab  raiders  passing  across  the  plain  a  few  miles 
west  of  us,  and  all  day  we  proceeded  with  the  greatest 
caution,  for  fear  they  might  swoop  down  upon  us. 
We  afterwards  learned  that  their  last  foray  had  been 
unsuccessful,  and  consequently  they  were  returning 
to  their  encampment  in  an  unamiable  frame  of  mind 
which  would  have  boded  ill  to  us  if  we  had  happened 
to  cross  their  path. 

Midway  between  Ain  el-Beida  and  Palmyra,  we 
made  a  detour  to  visit  some  mountains  a  little  dis- 
tance to  the  left  of  the  trail.  We  found  here  two 
altars  about  six  feet  high,  bearing  bi-lingual  inscrip- 
tions in  Greek  and  Palmyrene,  which  related  that 
they  had  been  erected  on  March  21  of  the  year  of 
Palmyra  425  (114  A.  D.),  and  were  dedicated  to  the 
"  Most  High  God."  Near  by  could  be  seen  the 
broken  base  of  a  third  monument,  but  there  were  no 
other  indications  of  human  handiwork.  We  con- 

[131] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

i 

eluded  that  these  altars  must  mark  the  course  of  the 
ancient  highway,  which  the  city  was  under  obligation 
to  maintain  and  protect. 

The  hills  on  either  side  of  the  plain  now  drew  very 
much  nearer  to  us  and,  as  we  approached  the  nar- 
row pass  which  leads  to  the  desert  city,  we  saw  be- 
side the  road  several  strange  mortuary  towers. 
These  are  as  characteristic  a  feature  of  the  environs 
of  Palmyra  as  are  the  tombs  on  the  Appian  Way  of 
the  approach  to  Rome.  Several  of  the  structures 
are  in  a  fair  state  of  preservation  and  show  clearly 
the  original  form  and  use.  They  were  each  of  three 
or  four  stories,  the  upper  floors  being  reached  by  in- 
side stairways.  Each  story  consisted  of  one  square 
room  surrounded  by  loculi  for  the  reception  of  the 
dead,  and  before  these,  or  standing  within  the  room, 
were  statues  of  the  persons  entombed  in  the  niches. 
The  statues  either  have  been  badly  mutilated  by  the 
Arabs,  who  have  a  religious  aversion  to  all  such 
"  idolatrous  "  representations,  or  have  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  vandalism  of  ignorant  dealers  in  an- 
tiquities who,  when  they  found  it  inconvenient  to 
carry  off  whole  figures,  would  break  them  and  smug- 
gle away  the  fragments.  Many  such  heads,  arms 
and  feet  have  found  their  way  to  the  coast  cities  of 
Syria,  and  some  few  have  been  sold  to  European  pal- 
aces and  museums. 

Our  long  journey  down  the  pass  ended  at  a  low 
saddle  between  the  hills,  and  we  at  last  looked  down 

[132] 


THE   DESERT    CAPITAL 


upon  Palmyra  itself.  Just  below  us  stretched  a 
vast,  confused  mass  of  broken,  reddish  stones,  from 
which  rose  here  and  there  a  group  of  graceful  col- 
umns or  the  massive  wall  of  a  ruined  temple.  Back 
of  the  city  were  the  desert  hills;  before  it  lay  the 
desert  plain.  Built  by  a  spring  at  the  crossroads  of 
the  wilderness  —  surely  no  other  of  the  world's  great 
capitals  had  so  strange  a  site  as  this  one ! 

The  thrilling  story  of  Palmyra's  rise  and  fall 
has  been  enshrined  in  poetry  and  romance  and  has 
inspired  the  painter's  genius.  The  city  lay,  as  has 
been  said,  midway  between  Damascus  and  the  Eu- 
phrates, on  the  most  fertile  oasis  along  the  ancient 
caravan  route.  It  thus  early  became  the  center  of 
the  trade  between  the  Mediterranean  countries  and 
the  heart  of  western  Asia.  If,  as  is  probable,  the 
Tadmor  or  Tamar  (Palm  City)  of  the  Bible  4  is 
the  same  as  Palmyra,  then  it  was  built  (or,  more 
probably,  rebuilt)  by  Solomon;  but  it  does  not 
again  emerge  into  historical  notice  until  about  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  when  Mark  Antony 
led  an  unsuccessful  expedition  against  it.  Still  later, 
the  Roman  emperors  recognized  Palmyra  as  an 
important  ally  and  buffer-state  against  the  inroads 
of  the  Parthians.  In  the  third  century  the  Empire 
was  thrown  into  a  state  of  anarchy  by  continual 
contests  between  rival  claimants  for  the  throne ;  so, 
though  in  theory  distant  Palmyra  was  only  a  "  col- 

il  Kiners  9:18. 
[133] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

ony,"  it  was  in  fact  given,  or  better,  allowed  to  as- 
sume, a  practical  independence.  Its  ruler  Oden- 
athus  II.  bore  the  title  of  Augustus,  which  was  in- 
ferior only  to  that  of  Emperor.  After  his  death  he 
was  known  as  the  "  King  of  kings."  In  reality,  he 
was  the  absolute  ruler  of  a  sovereign  state. 

When  Valerian  had  been  put  to  rout  by  Sapor  of 
Persia,  it  was  Odenathus  who  decisively  defeated  the 
invaders,  saved  the  Roman  Empire  from  what  seemed 
certain  overthrow,  and  incidentally  added  Mesopo- 
tamia to  his  own  royal  domains.  This  king  of  Pal- 
myra would  doubtless  have  proved  a  formidable  ri- 
val of  the  emperor,  had  not  his  life  been  cut  short 
by  assassination  in  the  year  266. 

Odenathus  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Vahballathus ; 
but  the  real  ruler  was  his  widow  Bath  Zebina,  better 
known  to  the  Western  world  by  the  Greek  form  of 
her  name,  Zenobia.  If  we  consider  her  intellectual 
power,  administrative  ability  and  personal  character, 
Zenobia  ranks  as  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  great- 
est, of  all  queens.  She  was  as  gifted  in  military  af- 
fairs as  Semiramis,  as  strong  a  ruler  as  Elizabeth,  as 
beautiful  as  her  ancestor  Cleopatra,  more  learned 
than  Catherine,  and  her  private  life  was  never 
touched  by  the  breath  of  calumny. 

She  is  described  as  of  surpassing  loveliness,  ac- 
cording to  the  Oriental  type  of  beauty,  with  spark- 
ling black  eyes,  pearly  teeth  and  a  commanding  pres- 
ence. She  spoke  Greek  and  Coptic  fluently  and  knew 

[i34] 


THE   DESERT   CAPITAL 


some  Latin,  in  addition,  of  course,  to  her  native  Ara- 
mean.  She  drew  up  for  her  own  use  an  epitome  of 
history,  delighted  in  reading  Homer  and  Plato, 
and  beguiled  her  leisure  by  discussing  philosophy 
with  the  famous  scholar  Longinus,  whom  she  per- 
suaded to  take  up  a  permanent  residence  at  her 
court. 

Her  physical  endurance  was  remarkable.  While 
her  husband  was  living,  she  was  accustomed  to  ac- 
company him  on  his  hunting  expeditions.  After  the 
death  of  Odenathus,  she  habitually  rode  at  the  head 
of  her  armies  on  a  fiery  stallion,  from  which,  however, 
she  would  often  dismount,  so  that  she  might  share  the 
fatigue  of  the  march  with  the  common  soldiers.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  such  a  leader  — beautiful,  pure, 
brave,  queenly  yet  friendly  —  inspired  in  her  armies 
an  intense  personal  loyalty  and  an  unquestioning  as- 
sent to  her  most  daring  plans.  Without  a  murmur 
they  followed  their  beloved  queen  into  the  fearful 
struggle  with  the  world-empire. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  her  reign,  she  threw  down 
the  gauntlet  to  Rome.  The  sway  of  Palmyra 
already  extended  over  Armenia  and  Mesopotamia. 
An  army  of  70,000  men  now  defeated  the  Roman 
legions  by  the  Nile  and  annexed  Egypt.  Zenobia 
next  pushed  her  victorious  banners  northward  to  the 
very  shores  of  the  Bosphorus.  When  the  newly 
elected  emperor  Aurelian  insisted  that  she  should 
formally  acknowledge  his  sovereignty,  her  answer 

[i35] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

was  a  bold  defiance  and  a  proclamation  of  herself  and 
her  son  as  supreme  rulers  of  the  whole  East. 

Aurelian,  however,  was  of  different  stuff  from  his 
weakling  predecessors.  In  the  year  272  he  brought 
an  immense  army  to  Syria,  defeated  the  forces  of 
Zenobia  at  Antioch  and  then,  following  quickly  after 
the  retreating  Palmy renes,  routed  them  again  near 
the  city  of  Emesa  (modern  Horns)  and  demanded  of 
Zenobia  that  she  surrender.  The  haughty  answer 
was  that  her  enemy  had  not  yet  even  begun  to  test 
the  valor  and  resources  of  Palmyra. 

So  the  great  army  of  Rome  laid  siege  to  the  desert 
stronghold.  The  winter  and  spring  wore  on,  and 
Zenobia  was  still  unconquered.  Whenever  Aurelian 
summoned  her  to  capitulate,  she  responded  with  an- 
other bold  defiance.  But  at  last  it  became  clear  that 
her  capital  was  doomed;  so  the  queen,  escaping  the 
vigilance  of  the  Roman  sentries,  slipped  away  from 
the  city  and  fled  across  the  desert  toward  the  Eu- 
phrates. Just  as  she  reached  the  bank  of  the  river, 
however,  she  was  overtaken  and  brought  back  captive. 
Yet  her  proud  spirit  remained  unbroken.  When  Au- 
relian reproached  her  for  her  obstinate  and  useless 
rebellion,  she  answered  with  calm  dignity  that  the 
course  of  events  had  indeed  proved  his  supremacy, 
but  that  the  previous  emperors  had  not  shown  them- 
selves to  be  superior  to  her,  and  she  had  therefore 
been  justified  in  opposing  their  authority. 

In  spite  of  the  stubborn  resistance  of  the  city,  Au- 
[136] 


THE   DESERT   CAPITAL 


relian  did  not  now  destroy  Palmyra  or  treat  its  in- 
habitants cruelly.  But  when  he  reached  the  Bos- 
phorus  on  his  way  back  to  Rome,  word  came  that 
the  Palmy renes  had  already  revolted  and  had  slain 
the  Roman  garrison  left  by  the  conqueror.  There- 
upon he  quickly  retraced  his  march  and  recaptured 
the  city  without  difficulty.  This  time  the  enraged 
emperor  ordered  the  beautiful  capital  to  be  razed  and 
allowed  his  soldiers  to  engage  in  an  awful  massacre. 
Neither  women  nor  children  were  spared,  and  when 
the  avenging  army  finally  left  the  unhappy  city,  its 
splendid  buildings  were  but  heaps  of  dusty  rubbish, 
among  which  hid  a  miserable  remnant  of  its  heart- 
broken inhabitants.  Thus  departed  forever  the 
glory  of  Palmyra. 

The  heart  of  the  world  has  been  touched  by  the 
pathetic  spectacle  of  proud,  beautiful  Zenobia  led  cap- 
tive through  the  streets  of  Rome  to  grace  Aurelian's 
triumphal  procession.  Yet  the  emperor  seems  to 
have  treated  his  captive  with  unusual  consideration 
and  respect,  and  he  generously  bestowed  upon  her  a 
large  estate  near  Tivoli.  There,  in  the  company  of 
her  two  sons,  she  passed  the  rest  of  her  days  quietly, 
though  we  dare  not  hope  happily. 

Palmyra  was  afterwards  partially  rebuilt  by  Dio- 
cletian and  was  fortified  by  Justinian,  who  made  it  a 
garrison  town ;  but  it  never  regained  its  former  pros- 
perity. The  city  was  overrun  by  the  desert  Arabs, 
and  suffered  severely  during  the  conflicts  among  the 

[i37] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

rival  Moslem  conquerors  of  Syria.  In  the  year  745 
it  was  again  destroyed;  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries  it  suffered  from  severe  earthquakes ;  in  1401 
it  was  plundered  by  the  Tartar  Tamerlane;  in  the 
sixteenth  century  it  was  taken  by  the  Druses,  and  in 
the  seventeenth  it  was  razed  by  the  Turks.  For 
many  generations  the  ancient  city  on  the  oasis  was 
completely  unknown  to  the  Western  world,  though 
the  wandering  Bedouins  delighted  to  talk  of  the  mar- 
velous ruins  in  the  midst  of  the  great  desert. 

Modern  Tadmor  —  for  it  has  taken  again  its  old 
Semitic  name  —  is  but  a  wretched  Arab  hamlet  of 
perhaps  three  hundred  inhabitants,  whose  mud-plas- 
tered hovels  lie  in  the  midst  of  imposing  ruins.  Fully 
a  square  mile  of  the  plain  is  strewn  with  the  debris  of 
temples,  palaces  and  majestic  colonnades.  Many  col- 
umns are  still  standing,  after  having  braved  the  wars 
and  earthquakes  of  sixteen  centuries ;  but  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  them  lie  prone  on  the  ground,  half 
buried  by  the  drifting  dust. 

The  most  prominent  object  that  meets  the  eye  is 
the  Great  Temple  of  Baal,  the  sun-god,  which  stands 
on  a  high  platform  overlooking  the  plain.  Although 
Aurelian  himself  had  this  edifice  restored  after  the 
final  subjugation  of  Palmyra,  it  has  since  been  badly 
damaged  by  earthquakes  and  defaced  by  the  fa- 
naticism of  Moslem  iconoclasts.  Yet  eight  of  its  tall 
fluted  columns  and  practically  all  of  one  side-wall 
enable  us  to  guess  what  must  have  been  the  beauty  of 

[138] 


THE   DESERT   CAPITAL 


this  structure  when  it  was  the  chief  sanctuary  of 
Zenobia's  capital. 

Other  ruins  rise  above  the  intricate  mass  of  fallen 
columns  which  cover  the  area  occupied  by  the  ancient 
city.  This  huge  pile  of  carved  stones  surmounted 
by  a  broken  portico  was  once  the  royal  palace. 
Yonder  curving  colonnade  includes  the  fragments  of 
the  theater.  Smaller  temples  are  recognized  here 
and  there,  and  on  the  hillside  at  the  edge  of  the  oasis 
can  be  seen  a  number  of  the  tall,  square  towers  which 
were  built  as  burial-places  for  the  wealthier  families. 

But  the  chief  architectural  glory  of  ancient  Pal- 
myra was  its  far-famed  Street  of  Columns.  This  im- 
posing avenue  stretched  from  the  western  edge  of  the 
oasis  to  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  a  distance  of  about 
three-quarters  of  a  mile.  On  each  side  of  it  was  a 
continuous,  elaborately  carved  entablature,  supported 
by  nearly  four  hundred  columns  of  reddish-brown 
limestone.  About  two-thirds  of  the  way  up  these 
columns  were  corbels  which,  as  the  inscriptions  still 
show,  bore  statues  of  prominent  citizens.  At  every 
important  crossing,  whence  other  colonnaded  avenues 
stretched  to  the  right  and  left,  four  massive  granite 
pillars  supported  a  vaulted  tetrapylon  or  quadruple 
gate. 

Over  a  hundred  of  the  columns  of  this  beautiful 
avenue  are  still  standing  in  their  places,  and  large 
portions  of  the  entablature  remain  unbroken.  One 
can  easily  follow  the  course  of  the  colonnade  and 

[139] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

understand  its  relation  to  adjoining  structures;  and 
the  traveler  must  be  sadly  lacking  in  imagination  who 
cannot  sometimes,  as  the  light  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury day  grows  dimmer,  see  a  dream  city  of  won- 
drous, unbroken  beauty  stand  proud  again  beneath 
the  calm,  still  gleaming  of  the  desert  stars.  Not 
shattered  stones  but  well-built  homes  and  busy  ba- 
zaars spread  far  outward  from  the  foot  of  the 
mountain ;  a  multitude  of  graceful  pillars  stand  up- 
right around  the  palaces  and  temples  of  a  mighty 
capital,  and  between  the  long  lines  of  statues  on  the 
reddish  shafts  of  the  great  colonnade  a  splendid  vista 
reaches  to  the  triumphal  arch  and  then,  through  its 
triple  portals,  to  where  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  keeps 
silent  watch  over  a  city  of  imperial  grandeur  and 
a  queen  who  sees  visions  of  world-wide  dominion. 

The  few  hundred  residents  of  Tadmor  are  of 
Arab  blood,  but  the  Bedouins  of  the  surrounding 
desert  consider  them  a  poor,  degenerate  race,  as 
doubtless  they  are.  Shortly  before  we  visited  the 
village,  its  sheikh  had  made  a  wonderful  trip  to  Paris 
as  guest  of  a  French  lady  who  had  previously  trav- 
eled through  the  desert  under  his  guidance.  It 
seemed  very  strange,  in  this  lonely  little  hamlet 
among  the  ruins  of  a  vanished  people,  to  hear  an  Arab 
sheikh  tell  stories  —  and  he  loved  to  tell  them  — 
about  his  adventures  in  the  most  modern  of  twentieth 
century  capitals. 

We  were  so  fortunate  as  to  be  invited  to  a  great 
[140] 


The  Triple  Gate  and  the  Temple  of  the  Sun 


THE   DESERT   CAPITAL 


feast  which  the  sheikh  gave  the  entire  village  in  honor 
of  his  birthday.  Feeding  the  poor  in  this  wholesale 
way  is  regarded  by  the  Arabs  as  a  deed  of  great  merit. 
A  slaughtered  camel  provided  the  piece  de  resistance 
of  the  banquet.  In  the  center  of  the  room  was  placed 
an  enormous  tray  piled  with  a  mountain  of  burghul, 
or  boiled  wheat,  into  which  had  been  inserted  huge 
pieces  of  camel's  meat.  A  large  funnel-shaped  de- 
pression had  been  scooped  out  in  the  top  of  the  pile 
and  filled  with  melted  butter.  This  percolated 
through  the  mass  and  added  the  final  touch  of  flavor 
to  what  was  —  if  you  liked  it  —  a  most  rich  and  de- 
licious repast.  The  anxious  villagers  were  then  ad- 
mitted in  groups  of  eight  or  ten.  They  immediately 
squatted  around  the  tray,  thrust  their  hands  into  the 
mass,  grasped  as  much  as  they  could,  plunged  it  into 
their  mouths  and,  in  order  not  to  lose  any  time,  swal- 
lowed it  with  as  little  mastication  as  possible.  One 
greedy  fellow  got  an  unusually  large  chunk  of  camel's 
meat  into  his  throat  and,  as  a  consequence,  nearly 
choked  to  death  before  his  comrades  relieved  him  by 
strenuous  blows  upon  his  back. 

In  order  to  visit  Hama,  we  returned  from  Pal- 
myra by  another  route ;  and,  as  a  large  part  of  this 
journey  was  to  be  across  a  trackless,  waterless  and 
absolutely  uninhabited  desert,  we  engaged  a  Bedouin 
to  act  as  our  guide. 

Not  long  after  setting  out,  we  passed  through  a 
gap  in  the  hills  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide,  whose  sides 

[141] 


SYRIA,   THE    LAND    OF   LEBANON 

were  almost  as  perpendicular  as  if  they  had  been  walls 
shaped  by  the  hand  of  man.  The  locality  is  called 
Marbat  Antar,  that  is,  "  Antar's  Hitching-place." 
Antar  is  the  hero  of  many  a  fabulous  exploit  among 
the  Arabs,  much  as  was  Hercules  among  the  Greeks ; 
and  the  prodigies  of  valor  which  he  performed  in 
defense  of  his  tribe  are  celebrated  in  song  and  story. 
Among  other  wonderful  feats,  he  is  said  to  have 
leaped  his  horse  across  this  deep  ravine  from  cliff  to 
cliff. 

The  first  day's  journey  homeward  brought  us  to 
el-Wesen,  a  well  where  we  had  expected  to  lay  in  a 
supply  of  water  for  the  long  ride  across  the  arid  wil- 
derness ;  but,  to  our  intense  disappointment,  we  found 
the  water  foul  with  dead  locusts.  Our  Arabs,  how- 
ever, swallowed  the  nauseating  fluid  with  great  gusto, 
apparently  rejoicing  that  they  could  obtain  both 
food  and  drink  in  the  same  mouthful ;  and,  as  it  was  a 
case  of  necessity,  we  managed  to  cook  some  food  with 
the  water,  and  even  drank  a  little  of  it  in  the  form 
of  very  strong  tea  which  disguised  somewhat  the  in- 
sect flavor. 

The  next  morning  we  were  ready  for  the  start  at 
four  o'clock  and  traveled  all  day  through  a  rolling, 
treeless  country,  which  in  summer  is  absolutely  bare 
of  vegetation.  At  sunset  we  halted  for  two  hours  in 
order  to  rest  and  feed  the  animals.  Then  we  mounted 
again  for  an  all-night  ride ;  for  we  did  not  dare  sleep 
until  we  had  come  to  water.  There  was  no  trail 

[142] 


THE    DESERT    CAPITAL 


visible  to  us,  but  our  guide  held  steadily  on  through 
the  darkness.  During  the  long  night  we  could  see 
ahead  of  us  his  white  camel,  keeping  straight  on  the 
course  with  no  apparent  aid  save  the  twinkling  stars 
above.  There  was  such  danger  of  falling  in  with  one 
of  the  robber  tribes  which  infest  this  district  that  we 
were  warned  not  to  speak  above  a  whisper.  The 
poor  donkeys  also  received  a  hint  not  to  bray.  Each 
of  them  had  a  halter  looped  tightly  around  his  neck. 
As  soon  as  an  animal  was  seen  to  raise  his  nose  in 
preparation  for  an  ecstatic  song,  some  one  would 
quickly  tighten  the  noose  and,  to  our  amusement  and 
the  donkey's  very  evident  disgust,  the  only  sound  to 
issue  from  his  throat  would  be  a  thin  gurgling  whine. 
As  the  night  drew  on  we  became  so  sleepy  that  we 
could  hardly  sit  in  the  saddles,  and  before  morning 
dawned  we  were  burning  with  thirst.  Our  guide  led 
us  to  another  spring.  Not  only  was  it  full  of  long- 
dead  locusts,  but  a  wild  pig  was  wallowing  in  the 
filthy  water!  Even  the  Arabs  refused  to  drink  from 
the  pool  that  had  been  defiled  by  the  unclean  beast. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  push  on  again.  We 
had  been  twenty-six  hours  in  the  saddle,  with  nothing 
to  drink  save  "  locust-tea,"  when  at  last  we  came  to  a 
little  village  by  a  running  stream  of  clear,  limpid 
water — and  our  desert  journey  was  safely  over. 


[H3] 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOME       SALT       PEOPLE 

WHENEVER    the    genial    American    consul- 
general  spoke  of  a  certain  godly  Scotch- 
woman who  was  laboring  for  the  uplift  of 
Syria,  a  not  irreverent  twinkle  would  come  into  his 
eye  as  he  paraphrased  the  words  of  the  Gospel  - 
"  She  is  one  of  those  salt  people." 

I  should  like  to  write  a  book  about  the  men  and 
women  of  many  races  and  many  ecclesiastical  affili- 
ations whose  lives  are  bringing  a  varied  savor  and 
moral  asepsis  to  the  land  of  Syria.  It  would  contain 
tales  of  thrilling  romance  and  brave  adventure  and  a 
surprising  number  of  humorous  anecdotes,  besides  the 
record  of  quiet  self-devotion  which  is  taken  for 
granted  in  all  missionary  biographies.  Such  a 
lengthy  narration  falls  without  the  scope  of  the  pres- 
ent work.  Yet  any  description  of  Syria  and  its 
people  would  be  incomplete  which  did  not  include  at 
least  a  few  glimpses  of  the  men  and  women  who,  more 
than  all  others,  are  molding  the  thought  and  uplift- 
ing the  ideals  and  helping  to  solve  the  critical  prob- 
lems of  the  land  of  Lebanon. 

[H4] 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


Earnest  faith,  noble  character  and  uncomplaining 
self-sacrifice  are  not  sufficient  equipment  for  the  Syr- 
ian missionary.  These  qualities  are  indeed  needed, 
and  as  a  rule  are  possessed  in  generous  measure. 
But  he  who  is  to  exert  any  permanent  influence  for 
good  upon  this  proud,  sturdy,  persistent,  quick-witted 
race,  with  its  almost  cynical  proficiency  in  religious 
argumentation,  must  also  be  strong  of  body,  alert 
of  intellect,  tactful  in  social  intercourse,  and  withal 
of  an  adaptability  born  not  of  vacillation  but  of  a 
firm  hold  on  the  essentials  of  life. 

Among  the  American  missionaries,  for  instance, 
have  been  found  champion  athletes,  splendid  riders 
and  marksmen,  raconteurs  of  surprising  mental  agil- 
ity, phenomenal  linguists  and  surgeons  of  magnificent 
daring.  One  gained  world-wide  fame  as  an  author 
and  another  as  a  scientist.  A  third  was  the  best 
Arabic  scholar  of  his  century,  if  not  of  any  century. 
Well-known  American  colleges  have  called  —  in  vain 
—  for  presidents  from  Syria ;  and  an  important  em- 
bassy of  the  United  States  was  thrice  offered  to  a 
missionary,  who  preferred,  however,  to  keep  to  his 
chosen  life-work  —  at  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
These  men  and  women  are  not  laboring  here  because 
there  is  no  other  field  of  endeavor  open  to  them. 
They  are  very  intelligent,  competent,  refined,  brave, 
adaptable  people,  with  deep  knowledge  of  many  other 
things  besides  religion,  a  broad  vision  of  the  world's 
affairs,  and  almost  invariably  a  keen  sense  of  humor; 

[i45] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

people  whom  it  is  an  education  to  know  and  a  glad 
inspiration  to  own  as  friends. 

In  1855  a  leaky  sailing  vessel  landed  a  cargo  of 
rum  and  missionaries  at  Beirut.  The  rum  was  drunk 
up  long  ago;  but  one  of  the  passengers,  a  tall,  wiry 
Yankee,  is  still  bubbling  over  with  the  joy  of  life. 
When  I  met  Dr.  Bliss  again  in  Syria  last  summer,  he 
told  me  with  quiet  chuckles  of  enjoyment  how,  shortly 
after  he  came  to  the  East,  one  of  the  older  mission- 
aries remarked,  "  Daniel  Bliss  isn't  practical  and  his 
wife  won't  live  a  year  in  this  climate."  After  nearly 
sixty  years,  the  beloved  wife  is  still  with  him ;  and  as 
for  being  practical  —  there  stands  the  great  uni- 
versity which  he  has  built ! 

Others  helped  him  from  the  beginning  —  wise  and 
generous  philanthropists  like  William  E.  Dodge  and 
Morris  K.  Jesup  in  America  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
and  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  in  Great  Britain  —  but 
two  thousand  alumni  scattered  over  the  five  conti- 
nents will  tell  you  that  the  Syrian  Protestant  College 
is  first  and  foremost  a  monument  to  the  foresight  and 
tact  and  self-sacrifice  and  patience  and  indomitable 
enthusiasm  of  "  the  Old  Doctor." 

It  was  at  first  very  small.  A  half-century  ago 
there  were  but  a  few  pupils  gathered  in  a  hired  room. 
To-day  the  faculty  and  administrative  officers  alone 
number  nearly  four  score,  and  a  thousand  men  and 
boys  are  studying  in  the  English  language.  The 

[146] 


SOME    SALT   PEOPLE 


institution  is  emphatically  Christian,  but  it  is  as 
absolutely  non-sectarian  as  Harvard  or  Columbia. 
Every  great  religion  and  sect  of  the  Near  East,  in- 
cluding Mohammedanism  and  Judaism,  is  represented 
in  the  student  body;  and  it  is  hardly  an  exagger- 
ation to  say  that  every  student  and  graduate  honors 
Daniel  Bliss  next  only  to  God.  As  he  walks  through 
the  streets  of  the  city,  men  stop  to  kiss  his  hands  — 
which  embarrasses  him  exceedingly.  Perhaps  they 
love  him  so  much  because  they  are  so  sure  that  he 
loves  them.  Orientals  are  very  quick  to  detect  a 
stranger's  underlying  motives,  and  many  a  smooth- 
speaking  philanthropist  has  been  weighed  by  them 
and  found  wanting.  But,  during  nearly  sixty  years' 
residence  in  Beirut,  Dr.  Bliss  has  lived  such  a  life 
that  his  devotion  to  Syria  and  his  affectionate  inter; 
est  in  Syrians  has  become  a  tradition  handed  down 
from  father  to  son. 

He  has  known  dark  days  and  fought  hard  battles, 
yet  he  has  never  lacked  a  buoyant  optimism,  born 
partly  of  trust  in  God  and  partly  of  a  strong  body 
and  a  healthful  mind.  He  has  no  patience  with  dis-« 
mal,  despondent  prophets  of  evil.  I  never  knew  a 
man  with  a  larger  capacity  for  enjoyment.  Good 
music  always  moves  him  powerfully.  He  keeps  in 
touch  with  the  latest  European  and  American  peri- 
odicals. He  likes  new  books,  new  songs,  new  stories 
and,  especially,  new  jokes.  Active,  alert,  quick  at 
repartee,  he  is  passionately  fond  of  the  society  of 

[H7] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

young  people,  and  they  repay  the  liking  with  inter- 
est. 

A  visitor  to  the  college  was  once  speaking  of  the 
attractive  horseback  rides  through  the  country 
around  Beirut.  "  But,"  he  added,  as  he  looked 
up  at  the  white-haired  president,  "  I  suppose  you 
don't  ride  any  more."  "  No,"  answered  Dr.  Bliss 
with  a  resigned  sigh,  "  I  haven't  been  on  a  horse  for 
—  three  days  !  " 

He  is  getting  on  in  years  now,  and  a  recent  stoop 
has  taken  a  fraction  of  an  inch  from  his  six  feet  of 
spare,  hard  bone  and  muscle.  A  decade  ago  he  re- 
signed the  presidency  of  the  college,  whereupon,  to 
his  great  delight,  his  son  was  elected  to  fill  the  va- 
cancy. "  See  what  my  boy  is  doing !  "  he  exclaims, 
as  he  shows  visitors  the  new  buildings  which  are  going 
up  almost  at  the  rate  of  one  a  year.  So  now  the 
Old  Doctor  just  walks  about  the  campus  which  he 
loves,  and  from  beneath  his  shock  of  thick  white  hair 
beams  an  irresistibly  infectious  enjoyment  of  this 
superlatively  beautiful  world,  where  anybody  who  has 
the  mind  can  work  so  hard  and  get  so  much  fun  out 
of  it. 

Did  I  say  that  Dr.  Bliss  is  old?  Not  he!  He 
would  indignantly  deny  the  imputation.  It  is  true 
that  he  celebrated  his  ninetieth  birthday  last  August, 
but  what  of  that?  He  recently  expressed  an  inten- 
tion to  live  to  be  a  hundred.  When  he  was  a  stalwart 
youth  of  four  score  I  heard  him  remark,  "  Let  the 

[148] 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


aged  people  talk  about  the  good  old  times  if  they 
want  to.  I  have  no  patience  with  such  old  fogies. 
/  believe  that  the  world  is  getting  better  every  day." 

Ras  Baalbek  is  a  little  village  some  twenty  miles 
north  of  the  famous  temples.  Its  thousand  inhabit- 
ants are  exceedingly  ignorant  and  bigoted  Oriental 
Catholics.  The  only  native  Protestant  family  is 
that  of  the  school-teacher.  There  is  also  one 
American  citizen  —  an  adopted  brother  of  ours  who 
accumulated  a  few  hundred  dollars  in  the  United 
States,  learned  a  few  words  of  English,  and  then  re- 
turned to  his  birthplace,  where  he  keeps  the  village 
khan,  which  has  an  evil  reputation  as  a  gambling- 
house.  The  Ras  is  cold  in  winter,  hot  in  summer, 
and  filthy  at  all  seasons.  The  houses  are  built  half  of 
mud  and  half  of  stone ;  the  streets  are  filled  with  un- 
mitigated mud.  A  legion  of  fierce  curs  fill  the  night 
with  their  howling,  and  rush  out  of  dark  corners  to 
snap  at  unsuspecting  strangers. 

It  was  not  an  inviting  town,  but  we  had  heard  that 
two  American  ladies  were  spending  the  winter  there 
in  missionary  work ;  so,  after  we  had  turned  over  our 
horses  to  our  fellow  citizen  of  the  khan  and  had  dug 
passably  clean  collars  out  of  our  dusty  saddle-bags, 
we  went  to  pay  them  an  evening  call.  Their  house 
was  not  hard  to  find,  for  it  was  the  finest  in  all  the 
village,  a  commodious  mansion  with  two  rooms,  one 
built  of  stone  and  the  other  of  mud. 

[i49] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

When  the  door  opened  for  us,  we  passed  immedi- 
ately from  Syria  to  America  and,  under  the  influence 
of  the  warmth  and  refinement  and  hospitable  cheer 
of  the  mud-walled  room,  our  sentiments  toward  Ras 
Baalbek  underwent  a  complete  and  permanent  change. 
These  quiet-speaking,  refined  ladies  did  not  look  at 
all  like  martyrs  of  the  faith.  It  was  hard  to  realize 
that  they  had  immured  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a 
dirty,  ignorant,  fanatical  community,  and  were  living 
in  circumstances  of  very  real  hardship  and  peril.  In 
the  street  just  outside,  the  dogs  were  yelping  noisily. 
From  a  neighboring  roof  a  stentorian  voice  called  out 
what  corresponded  to  the  evening  edition  of  a  local 
newspaper.  The  village  was  informed  that  the  rob- 
ber-tribe of  Beit  Dendish  was  ravaging  the  valley, 
a  prominent  resident  had  been  murdered  the  preced- 
ing night,  and  Abu  somebody-or-other  had  lost  one 
of  his  goats.  In  the  bright,  warm  room,  however,  we 
talked  of  American  friends  and  American  books,  and 
discussed  the  probable  outcome  of  the  Yale-Prince- 
ton game. 

After  supper  we  all  went  to  the  house  of  the  native 
teacher  for  a  little  prayer  meeting.  He  was  a  young 
married  man  with  several  children,  but  his  housekeep- 
ing arrangements  were  very  simple.  There  was  but 
one  room.  The  floor  was  of  mud,  the  ceiling  was 
mud  and  straw,  the  walls  were  mud  and  stone.  In 
one  corner  was  a  big  pile  of  mattresses  and  blankets ; 
in  another  was  a  small  pile  of  cooking  utensils,  and 

[150] 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


one  wall  was  hollowed  out  to  serve  as  a  bin  for  flour. 
The  teacher's  children  lay  on  mattresses  spread  upon 
the  bare  floor  and  slept  quite  soundly  through  all  the 
talking  and  singing. 

As  there  were  no  other  Protestants  in  the  village, 
the  attendance  was  naturally  small.  Two  or  three 
neighbors  slipped  in  quietly  and  seated  themselves  by 
the  door.  These  Catholics  were  probably  drawn  here 
merely  by  curiosity  to  see  the  American  ladies  and 
their  visitors;  but  they  sat  reverently  through  the 
service  and  seemed  to  pay  very  close  attention,  though 
their  dark,  inscrutable  faces  gave  no  hint  as  to  what 
they  thought  of  the  proceedings. 

It  was  not  an  inspiring  audience ;  but  the  ladies  met 
each  newcomer  with  a  bright  smile  and  a  tactful  word 
of  greeting.  We  sang  strange-sounding  words  to  an 
old,  familiar  tune,  after  which  one  of  the  missionaries 
read  a  few  verses  from  the  Bible  and  added  a  brief 
explanation  of  their  meaning.  The  second  hymn  was 
set  to  an  Arab  air  that  sounded  a  little  startling 
to  our  Western  ears.  Then  came  a  short  closing 
prayer,  followed  immediately  by  very  lengthy  Ori- 
ental salutations,  as  the  two  strangers  were  intro- 
duced to  the  people  of  the  Ras. 

We  should  have  liked  to  stay  several  days  and  in- 
vestigate at  first-hand  the  work  among  women,  of 
which  we  had  heard  encouraging  reports ;  but  we  had 
to  ride  away  early  the  next  morning.  The  two  mis- 
sionaries walked  out  to  the  edge  of  the  village  with 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

us,  where  the  older  lady  gave  us  a  ridiculously  large 
lunch  and  a  pleasant  invitation  to  "  call  again  the 
next  time  you  are  passing !  "  The  younger  —  she 
was  very  young  —  pretended  to  weep  copiously  at  our 
departure,  and  wrung  bucketfuls  of  imaginary  tears 
out  of  her  handkerchief.  Then  the  two  cheery  fig- 
ures went  back  up  the  hill  to  their  long,  lonely  winter 
of  exile. 

On  the  last  Sunday  of  the  Old  Year  the  air  was 
just  crisp  enough  to  make  walking  an  exhilarating 
delight.  It  was  one  of  the  days,  not  infrequent  in 
the  rainy  season,  when  the  clouds  draw  away  for  a 
time,  while  earth  and  sky,  cleansed  and  refreshed  by 
the  recent  showers,  shine  with  the  refulgence  of  the 
rarest  mornings  of  our  Western  springtime. 

As  we  went  out  of  the  old  city  of  Horns,  the  clear- 
ness of  the  atmosphere  was  like  transparency  made 
visible.  The  horizon  was  as  clean-cut  as  that  of  the 
ocean.  Off  to  the  west  were  the  heights  inhabited  by 
the  cruel  and  fanatical  Nusairiyeh ;  straight  in  front 
of  us  to  the  south  was  the  "  Entering  In  of  Hamath," 
lying  low  and  narrow  between  Anti-Lebanon  on  our 
left  and  the  snow-clad  summits  of  highest  Lebanon 
on  our  right;  while  to  the  east  the  great  wheat-fields 
of  the  "  Land  of  Horns  "  rolled  away  over  the  horizon 
to  the  unseen  desert.  Our  goal,  the  little  village  of 
Feruzi,  shone  so  white  and  distinct  that  it  was  hard 
to  realize  that  it  was  over  an  hour's  journey  away. 

[152] 


SOME    SALT   PEOPLE 


We  were  four :  two  Americans,  the  native  pastor  of 
the  Protestant  congregation  at  Horns,  and  an  old,  old 
man.  The  pastor  was  a  noble  fellow,  who  shortly 
afterward  showed  heroic  mettle  during  a  fearful 
cholera  epidemic  which  ravaged  his  city.  The  old 
man,  however,  was  the  more  picturesque  figure. 

He  was  clothed  in  baggy  trousers  of  faded  blue, 
with  a  large  turban  on  his  head  and  a  heavy,  form- 
less sheepskin  mantle  over  his  shoulders ;  his  bare  feet 
were  thrust  into  great  yellow  slippers  which  flopped 
clumsily  as  he  walked.  We  should  once  have  been 
inclined  to  treat  him  with  some  condescension;  but 
fortunately  we  had  learned  the  Oriental  lesson  of  rev- 
erence for  old  age,  and  we  American  college  grad- 
uates soon  found  there  were  many  things  that  this 
unschooled  Syrian  mechanic  could  teach  us.  What 
dignity  and  quietness  marked  his  speech  and  manner! 
How  calm  and  trustful  was  his  attitude  toward  the 
future !  He  was  one  of  the  first  Protestants  in  this 
district,  and  many  were  the  stories  he  could  tell  of 
the  early  days  of  struggle  and  persecution.  He  had 
never  been  rich  —  I  doubt  if  he  earned  thirty  cents  a 
day ;  yet  he  spoke  as  one  who  had  observed  much  and 
reflected  much  and,  although  many  kinds  of  trouble 
had  come  to  him,  his  contentment  and  faith  were  an 
inspiration  to  us.  As  we  were  his  guests,  we  were 
of  course  treated  with  the  greatest  friendliness,  yet 
we  could  see  that  in  his  eyes  we  were  mere  boys,  who 
knew  little  of  the  problems  of  life.  And,  to  tell  the 

[i53] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

truth,  before  the  day  was  over  we  were  more  than 
half  inclined  to  agree  with  him. 

Feruzi  is  one  of  the  few  remaining  villages  in  the 
country  which  are  not  Syrian,  but  the  older  Chaldean 
in  blood  and  language.  Its  inhabitants,  who  number 
about  a  thousand,  appear  quite  different  in  feature 
as  well  as  dress  from  the  people  of  the  surrounding 
district.  Their  costume  is  a  peculiar  one,  remark- 
able for  its  warm  colors  and  long,  queerly  cut  trim- 
mings. The  women  remind  one  of  American  In- 
dians, and  the  faces  of  the  men  are  of  unusual  fierce- 
ness. It  seemed  quite  natural  that  there  should  be 
a  Chaldean  church  here,  big  and  gaudy,  yet  ugly 
and  ill-kept,  with  a  much-prized  copy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  the  Syriac  tongue  chained  to  the  lectern ;  but 
we  saw  no  structure  resembling  a  Protestant  place  of 
worship,  and  among  the  crowds  that  followed  us  curi- 
ously about  it  was  impossible  to  find  any  one  who 
looked  like  a  Presbyterian  elder. 

Yet  when  we  turned  into  the  room  set  apart  for 
the  use  of  the  Protestant  congregation,  some  of  the 
wildest  and  most  dangerous-looking  men  followed. 
It  was  a  small  place,  not  over  twenty  feet  square,  low 
and  dark,  and  quite  bare  save  for  a  rough  matting 
on  the  floor  and  a  chair  and  a  table  for  the  preacher. 
In  a  few  minutes  it  was  crowded  to  suffocation. 
There  were  over  ninety  people  in  the  little  room. 
The  men  sat  on  one  side  and  the  women  on  the  other ; 
but  all  of  us  sat  on  the  floor  and  were  so  packed  to- 

[154] 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


gether  that  any  change  of  position  was  quite  impos- 
sible, except  for  a  few  mothers  with  babies,  who  sat 
near  the  door. 

Throughout  the  long  Christmas  sermon  the 
cramped  audience  showed  a  reverence  and  an  atten- 
tiveness  that  would  have  shamed  many  an  American 
congregation.  Suppose  that  a  full-blooded  Arab  in 
his  flowing  native  dress,  should  enter  one  of  our 
churches  at  home  —  what  a  craning  of  necks  there 
would  be,  and  how  few  persons  would  be  able  to  recall 
the  text!  We  appeared  just  as  outlandish  to  the 
people  of  Feruzi ;  yet,  although  we  sat  at  the  back  of 
the  room,  not  a  person  turned  to  look  at  us,  except 
that  the  man  at  my  side  would  always  help  me  find 
the  place  in  the  hymn  book.  It  was  not  indifference, 
but  consideration  for  the  stranger  and  respect  for 
the  occasion ;  and  we  who  had  come  merely  to  see  an 
unusual  sight,  stayed  to  worship  God  with  these  new 
friends,  and  went  away  with  a  fuller  realization  of  the 
meaning  of  Christmas. 

After  the  service  was  over,  however,  there  could  be 
no  charge  of  indifference  brought  against  these  Chal- 
dean villagers  —  and  here  too  American  congre- 
gations might  well  learn  from  them.  The  same  men 
who  just  now  had  seemed  to  ignore  our  existence  came 
crowding  around  to  greet  us  as  "  brethren."  They 
inquired  about  our  life  at  Beirut  and  our  own  won- 
derful country  far  beyond  the  western  ocean ;  they 
expressed  a  complimentary  surprise  at  the  extent  of 

[i55] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

our  travels ;  they  sympathized  tenderly  with  the  home- 
sickness which  comes  so  strongly  at  Christmas-time 
and  expressed  kindly  wishes  for  our  dear  ones  in 
America;  they  pressed  upon  us  the  poor  hospitality 
that  it  was  in  their  power  to  offer.  In  short,  out  of 
church  as  in  church,  the  people  of  Feruzi  acted  like 
the  devout,  courteous  and  friendly  Christians  that 
they  were. 

When  at  last  we  had  to  leave,  they  all  followed  us 
out  to  the  village  limits,  and  one  or  two  —  such  is  the 
pleasant  Oriental  custom  —  walked  on  with  us  for  a 
mile  on  our  homeward  journey.  When  the  last 
strange,  dark  Chaldean  had  said  "  God  be  with  you, 
brother !  "  we  went  on  in  the  beautiful  calm  of  even- 
ing a  little  more  quietly  than  we  had  come,  with  a 
clearer  understanding  of  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
and  a  deeper  faith  in  the  teachings  of  man's  great 
Brother. 

To  those  who  look  to  see  an  effective  Gospel 
brought  again  to  the  Near  East  through  a  reawak- 
ening of  the  ancient  Oriental  churches,  it  is  encourag- 
ing to  know  that  even  now  there  are  prelates  who 
are  earnest,  sincere  and  capable.  Such  a  one  was 
Butrus  Jureijery,  the  first  bishop  of  Cassarea  Phil- 
ippi  and  later  the  patriarch  of  the  Greek  Catholic 
Church. 

From  beginning  to  end  he  was  a  thoroughgoing 
Catholic.  Indeed,  the  most  striking  incident  of  his 

[156] 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


early  career  was  an  argument  with  a  Protestant  Bible- 
seller,  which  developed  into  a  fierce  fistic  combat,  with 
the  result  that  the  governor  of  Lebanon  exiled  both 
parties  from  their  native  town  of  Zahleh. 

Some  years  later,  after  he  had  been  ordained  priest, 
Butrus  journeyed  to  Rome  and  presented  to  the  Holy 
Father  a  novel  petition. 

"  We  Catholics,"  he  said,  "  build  our  church  upon 
St.  Peter,  the  first  bishop,  the  rock,  the  holder  of  the 
keys ;  and  we  remember  that  the  apostle's  divine  com- 
mission was  given  by  Christ  at  Csesarea  Philippi  on 
the  slopes  of  Mount  Hermon.  How  is  it  that  the 
original  bishopric  of  the  Christian  Church,  the  first 
see  of  Peter,  has  been  so  long  allowed  to  remain  un- 
occupied? "  Now  Butrus  is  the  Arabic  pronuncia- 
tion of  Peter.  So  he  continued,  "  Here  am  I,  bear- 
ing the  very  name  of  the  greatest  apostle,  a  native  of 
the  holy  land  of  Lebanon,  and  ready  to  take  up  the 
arduous  labors  which  shall  reclaim  for  the  church 
its  first,  long  neglected  bishopric." 

The  pope  was  so  struck  by  the  force  of  the  argu- 
ment that  he  promised  to  consecrate  the  young  priest 
as  bishop  of  Csesarea,  or  Banias,  as  it  is  now  called. 
Then  the  bishop-elect  went  through  France,  preach- 
ing a  kind  of  new  crusade.  His  idea  was  novel  and 
striking,  and  met  with  enthusiastic  approval.  In- 
deed, with  such  eloquence  did  he  appeal  for  the  pro- 
posed diocese  that  he  became  immensely  popular 
throughout  all  France,  and  gifts  for  the  Bishopric  of 

[i57] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Banias  continued  to  flow  in  from  that  country  as  long 
as  Butrus  lived. 

In  1897  the  highest  ecclesiastics  of  the  Greek  Cath- 
olic Church  gathered  in  solemn  convention  at  Serba  to 
elect  a  new  patriarch.  Butrus  Jureijery  was  the 
people's  choice  ;  but  the  odds  against  him  seemed  over- 
whelming. He  was  too  active  and  too  honest  for  the 
hierarchy.  The  Turkish  government  was  inimical 
to  him,  the  powerful  Jesuit  order  fought  him,  the 
papal  nuncio  objected  to  his  nomination,  and  the 
bishops,  almost  to  a  man,  opposed  him. 

For  once,  however,  the  Syrian  peasants  defied  their 
ecclesiastical  lords.  Word  was  sent  to  the  conven- 
tion that  its  members  need  not  return  to  their  dioceses 
unless  they  cast  their  votes  for  Butrus.  So,  in  spite 
of  government,  Jesuits,  papal  nuncio,  and  the  wishes 
of  the  very  electors  themselves,  the  enterprising 
bishop  of  Banias  became  "  Patriarch  of  Antioch, 
Jerusalem,  Alexandria  and  the  Whole  East,"  and, 
subject  to  a  hardly  more  than  nominal  allegiance  to 
the  Vatican,  the  supreme  head  of  a  great  church 
whose  five  million  adherents  are  scattered  throughout 
the  Near  East  from  Hungary  to  Persia  and  from  the 
Black  Sea  to  the  upper  Nile. 

He  had  been  elected  as  the  "  People's  Patriarch," 
and  such  he  remained.  A  religious  and  political  auto- 
crat, with  every  opportunity  and  every  precedent  for 
using  his  office  to  enrich  himself  and  his  family,  he 
remained  poor  and  honest  to  the  end.  This  means 

[158] 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


more  than  the  American  reader  realizes.  Through- 
out the  East,  political  or  ecclesiastical  office  is  sup- 
posed to  afford  a  quasi-legitimate  means  of  amassing 
wealth.  Few  princes  of  the  church  have  ended  their 
lives  in  poverty,  nor  have  their  families  known  want. 
Yet  when  Butrus  died,  his  own  brother  would  have 
been  unable  to  attend  the  funeral,  if  a  popular  sub- 
scription had  not  raised  sufficient  money  to  buy  him  a 
decent  coat. 

Butrus  was  progressive  as  well  as  honest.  His 
personal  beliefs  did  not  change,  but,  as  he  grew  older, 
he  showed  a  more  liberal  spirit  toward  those  who 
differed  with  him.  He  entered  into  no  more  fist- 
fights  with  his  opponents ;  on  the  contrary,  he  treated 
them  with  the  greatest  courtesy.  He  was  the  first 
Greek  Catholic  patriarch,  for  instance,  to  return  the 
calls  of  the  Americans  in  Beirut  or  to  visit  the  Eng- 
lish Mission  at  Baalbek.  Indeed,  at  one  time  four  of 
the  seven  teachers  in  his  own  patriarchal  school  were 
Protestants.  A  thorough  churchman  himself,  he 
learned  to  fight  dissent  with  its  own  weapons ;  not 
anathema,  excommunication  and  seclusion,  but  edu- 
cation, honesty  and  progress.  He  presented  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  man  devout  of  heart  and  noble  of  purpose, 
but  differing  with  some  of  the  rest  of  us  in  his  theo- 
logical beliefs.  Such  are  honored  by  all  who  hold 
character  above  creed. 

He  was  loved  by  his  people  and  admired  and  re- 
spected by  the  members  of  all  other  communions ;  but 

[i59] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

with  his  own  bishops  he  had  to  wage  unceasing  war- 
fare, and  the  contest  drove  him  into  an  early  grave. 

Then  they  clothed  the  dead  man  in  his  richest 
robes,  heavy  with  gold  and  jewels.  They  put  his 
pontifical  staff  in  his  hand  and  set  him  on  his  throne 
in  his  palace,  and  for  three  days  all  the  world 
thronged  to  see  him.  There  were  foreign  consuls, 
come  to  do  honor  to  the  wise  statesman,  Protestant 
missionaries  who  esteemed  the  great  Catholic  for  his 
honesty  and  courage,  careless  young  people  drawn 
by  news  of  the  strange  spectacle,  and  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  Butrus'  beloved  poor,  who  kissed  his 
cold  hand  and  prayed  to  him  with  absolute  confidence 
that  he  would  still  be  their  friend  and  protector. 

On  a  bright,  beautiful  Easter  Sunday  I  watched 
his  funeral  procession  pass  through  the  streets  of 
Beirut.  In  a  way,  this  last  journey  was  typical  of 
his  life  and  character.  For  the  first  time  in  many 
long  centuries,  all  sects  ignored  their  differences  so 
that  they  might  together  do  honor  to  the  prelate  who 
was  greater  than  his  church.  Roman  Catholic, 
Greek  Catholic,  Greek  Orthodox,  Maronite  and  Ar- 
menian marched  together;  and  as  the  cortege  passed 
the  little  Protestant  Church,  its  bell  was  tolled  "  in 
order  that,"  as  its  pastor  said,  "  the  Turkish  soldiers 
in  the  barracks  yonder  may  know  that,  after  all,  we 
Christians  are  one." 

First  came  three  companies  of  Turkish  soldiers  and 
sixty  gorgeously  dressed  consular  guards ;  then  chil- 

[160] 


The  dead  Patriarch  being  driven  through  the 
streets  of  Beirut  in  his  gilded  chariot 


SOME   SALT   PEOPLE 


dren  from  the  church  schools,  black-robed  Jesuits, 
humble  mourners  from  the  patriarch's  native  town 
of  Zahleh,  men  bearing  wreaths  and  banners  sent  from 
sister  churches ;  then  more  children  singing  a  plain- 
tive Arabic  hymn.  There  were  present  two  patri- 
archs of  other  communions,  more  than  a  dozen  bish- 
ops and  three  hundred  and  fifty  priests,  and  the 
solemn  dignity  of  the  procession,  so  different  from  the 
loud,  hysterical  wailing  at  most  Syrian  funerals, 
seemed  to  impress  even  the  Moslem  spectators  on  the 
housetops  along  the  line  of  march. 

Last  of  all  came  Butrus  himself,  not  lying  within 
a  black-draped  hearse  but,  as  if  in  triumphal  pro^ 
cession,  seated  in  a  gilded  chariot  hung  with  bright 
banners  and  wreaths  of  flowers.  The  patriarch  sat 
upright  in  his  gorgeous  robes,  his  staff  grasped  firmly 
in  one  rigid  hand  and  a  crucifix  in  the  other.  I  stood 
within  ten  feet  of  the  chariot  as  it  passed  by,  and 
there  was  nothing  in  the  least  harrowing  in  the  sight ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  wonderfully  dignified  and  im- 
pressive. I  could  hardly  realize  that  the  patriarch 
was  dead ;  he  sat  there  so  naturally  with  his  long  gray 
beard  resting  upon  his  golden  vestments,  and  his 
large,  calm  features  seemed  still  to  be  animated  by 
the  vital  power  of  his  dauntless  spirit. 

Afterwards  there  were  long  addresses  lauding  the 
character  and  good  deeds  of  the  dead  man ;  the  bish- 
ops who  had  shortened  his  life  said  masses  for  the  re- 
pose of  his  soul ;  and  then,  still  clothed  in  his  robes  of 

[161] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

state,  they  placed  him  on  a  throne  in  a  vault  under 
the  pavement  of  the  cathedral  choir.  There  he  sits  in 
solemn,  lonely  grandeur,  like  some  Eastern  Barba- 
rossa  waiting  for  the  time  when  the  spirit  of  the 
Christ  shall  be  re-born  in  the  church  which  he  so 
loved,  for  which  in  his  own  earnest  way  he  so  un- 
ceasingly labored,  and  for  which  at  last  he  died. 


[162] 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE      CEDARS      OF      THE      LORD 

WE   had  watered  our  horses,  eaten  the  last 
olive  and  the  last  scrap  of  dusty  bread  that 
remained  in  the  bottom  of  our  saddle-bags, 
and  were  shivering  and  impatient  and  irritable;  for 
a    sea   of   beautiful   but   chilling   clouds   was    rolling 
around  us,  and  as  yet  there  was  no  sound  of  the  far- 
off  tinkle  that  would  herald  the  approach  of  the  be- 
lated mule-train  which  bore  our  tents  and  food. 

Then  suddenly,  just  as  the  sun  was  setting,  a 
friendly  breeze  swept  the  clouds  down  into  the 
valleys ;  and  in  a  moment  fatigue,  vexation  and  hun- 
ger were  forgotten,  as  we  contemplated  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  panoramas  in  all  Lebanon.  Before  us 
the  mountain  sloped  quickly  to  a  precipice  whose  foot 
lay  unseen,  thousands  of  feet  below,  while  just  across 
the  gorge,  so  steep  and -lofty  and  apparently  so  near 
as  almost  to  be  oppressive,  towered  Jebel  el-Arz  — 
the  Cedar  Mountain.  The  wrhole  range  was  bathed 
in  a  wonderful  golden  hue,  more  brilliant  yet  more 
ethereal  than  the  alpenglow  of  Switzerland.  Soon 
the  gold  faded  into  blue,  and  that  to  a  Tyrian 
purple,  a  color  so  royal  that  those  who  have  not  seen 

[163] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

cannot  believe,  so  deep  and  strange  that,  to  those  who 
have  seen,  it  seems  almost  unearthly.  One  must  gaze 
and  gaze  in  a  vain  attempt  to  fathom  its  unsearch- 
able depths,  until  the  purple  darkens  into  black,  and 
the  watcher  stands  silent,  as  if  the  setting  sun  had  for 
a  moment  swung  open  the  door  that  leads  into  the 
eternal. 

"  Where  are  the  cedars  ?  "  I  asked  a  member  of  our 
party  who  had  visited  them  before. 

"  Over  there,  directly  in  front  of  you !  " 
"  But  the  mountain  seems  to  be  one  bare,  empty 
mass  of  rock!  " 

"  Look  closer  —  yonder  —  where  I  am  pointing !  " 
Yes,  there  they  are,  apparently  hung  against  the 
face  of  the  rock  in  such  a  precarious  situation  that 
a  loosened  cone  would  drop  clear  of  the  little  ledge 
and  fall  all  the  way  to  the  bottom  of  the  valley.  You 
see  just  a  tiny  patch  of  dark  green  against  the  moun- 
tainside —  as  big  as  the  palm  of  your  hand  —  no,  as 
large  as  a  finger  nail  —  like  a  speck  on  the  lens  of  a 
field-glass.  Such  is  the  first  view  of  the  group  of 
ancient  trees  which  are  still  known  as  the  "  Cedars  of 
the  Lord." 

While  we  were  engrossed  with  the  mountain  scen- 
ery, the  baggage-train  at  last  appeared.  Then  came 
that  most  satisfyingly  luxurious  experience,  a  camp 
dinner  after  a  long,  wearisome  day  in  the  saddle. 
We  supplemented  our  canned  food  by  purchases  made 
at  the  near-by  village  of  Diman,  where  we  procured 

[164] 


A  summer  camp  in  Lebanon 


THE   CEDARS    OF   THE   LORD 

delicious  grapes,  tomatoes,  fresh  milk,  and  new-laid 
eggs  at  six  cents  a  dozen. 

After  dinner  a  young  Maronite  priest  came  up 
from  the  convent  to  visit  us.  Father  Abdullah 
proved  to  be  the  private  secretary  of  the  patri- 
arch, who  has  a  summer  residence  at  Diman.  It  was 
an  unanticipated  experience  for  us  to  meet,  high  up 
in  this  wild  mountain  region,  a  Syrian  priest  who, 
after  graduating  from  the  Maronite  College  at  Bei- 
rut, had  spent  seven  years  in  advanced  Latin  studies 
at  Paris  and  had  then  read  archaeology  at  the  British 
Museum.  Father  Abdullah's  English,  however,  was 
a  broken  reed ;  so  most  of  our  conversation  was  car- 
ried on  in  French,  with  an  occasional  lapse  into  Ar- 
abic. He  said  that  his  long  residence  at  Paris  had 
naturally  brought  him  into  closest  sympathy  with 
the  French,  but  that  nevertheless  he  considered  the 
English  superior  in  practicality  and  energy.  He 
had  recently  made  an  independent  archaeological 
study  of  the  surrounding  district,  and  entertained  us 
by  telling  some  of  his  own  theories  concerning  the 
very  early  history  of  Lebanon.  Later  in  the  evening, 
as  a  further  evidence  of  his  friendship,  he  sent  us  a 
great  basket  of  fresh  figs. 

While  we  were  enjoying  this  delicious  gift,  the 
fog  rolled  up  again  from  the  west  and  filled  the  gorge 
until  we  looked  across  the  billowing  surface  of  a  milk- 
white  sea,  above  which  only  a  few  of  the  loftiest 
peaks  appeared  as  lonely  islands.  Such  was  the  mar- 

[165] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

velous  purity  of  the  air  at  this  altitude  that  even  at 
night  the  sky  was  still  a  deep  blue  and  the  full 
moon  touched  the  rocks  with  delicate  tints  of  orange 
and  rose,  while,  to  complete  the  soft  beauty  of  the 
scene,  a  double  lunar  rainbow  swung  its  cold  silvery 
arcs  above  the  summit  of  the  Cedar  Mountain. 

Then  the  wind  freshened,  the  rising  fog-waves 
overflowed  from  the  valleys  and  the  penetrating  chill 
of  our  cloud-bound  mountainside  drove  us  to  the 
shelter  of  our  tents. 

When  we  reached  the  cedar  grove  the  next  noon, 
we  found  that  our  first  impressions  had  been  wrong 
concerning  everything  except  the  supreme  beauty  of 
the  mountain  setting.  Far  from  being  situated  upon 
a  narrow  shelf  on  a  perilously  steep  slope,  the  trees 
are  securely  enthroned  amid  surroundings  of  massive 
grandeur.  The  watershed  of  Lebanon  here  curves 
around  so  that  it  encloses  a  tremendous  natural  am- 
phitheater about  twelve  miles  long  and  over  six  thou- 
sand feet  in  depth,  with  its  inner,  concave  side  facing 
the  Mediterranean.  High  up  on  this  crescent-shaped 
slope,  the  Kadisha  or  "  Holy  "  River  issues  from  a 
deep  cave  and  falls  to  the  bottom  of  the  valley  in  a 
succession  of  beautiful  cascades.  Around  the  amphi- 
theater run  a  succession  of  curving  ledges,  like  ti- 
tanic balconies,  which  near  the  bottom  are  small  and 
fertile,  but  which  become  longer  and  broader  and 
more  barren  toward  the  wind-swept  summits.  The 
highest  of  these,  which  lies  nearly  seven  thousand  feet 

[166] 


THE   CEDARS   OF   THE   LORD 

above  the  sea,  is  eight  miles  long  and  at  its  widest 
three  miles  across.  Though  it  is  really  broken 
by  hundreds  of  hills,  these  are  dwarfed  into  insig- 
nificance by  the  great  peaks  which  rise  behind  them, 
and  in  a  distant  view  the  surface  of  the  plateau  seems 
perfectly  level. 

Here,  amid  surroundings  of  rare  beauty  and  yet 
of  solemn  loneliness,  is  set  the  royal  throne  of  the 
king  of  trees.  Just  back  of  the  cedars  the  mountains 
rise  to  an  elevation  of  over  11,000  feet.  Around 
them  is  vast  emptiness  and  silence.  No  other  trees 
grow  on  this  chill,  wind-swept  height.  No  under- 
brush springs  up  among  their  rugged  trunks.  The 
last  cultivated  fields  stop  just  below,  and  the  nearest 
village  is  out  of  sight  and  sound,  far  down  the  moun- 
tainside. A  few  goatherds  lead  their  flocks  to  a 
near-by  spring  that  is  fed  from  the  snow-pockets  of 
the  Cedar  Mountain ;  but  at  night  the  wolves  can  be 
heard  howling  hungrily,  and  by  the  end  of  the  year 
the  snow  drifts  deep  around  the  old  trees  and  the 
passes  are  closed  for  the  winter. 

Yet  downward  from  the  cedars  is  a  prospect  of 
warm,  fertile  beauty.     You  look  deep  into  the  dark 
green  valley   of  the   Kadisha,   and  then   across   the 
lower   mountains    to   where,   thirty  miles    away,   the 
"  great  sea  in  front  of  Lebanon  "  l  rises  high  up  into 
the  sky ;  and  during  one  memorable  week  in  the  sum- 
mer you  can  see,  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  across  the 
1  Joshua  9:1. 
[167] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Mediterranean,  the  jagged  mountain  peaks  of  the 
island  of  Cyprus  outlined  sharp  against  the  red  disk 
of  the  setting  sun. 

When  the  Old  Testament  writers  wished  to  de- 
scribe that  which  was  consummately  beautiful,  rich, 
strong,  proud  and  enduring,  they  drew  their  similes 
from  Hermon  and  Lebanon,  and  the  climax  of  the 
"  glory  of  Lebanon  "  they  found  in  the  "  cedars  of 
God."  2  Would  they  express  the  full  perfection  of 
that  which  was  choice,3  excellent,*  goodly,5  high  and 
lifted  up,6  they  pictured  "  a  cedar  in  Lebanon  with 
fair  branches,  and  with  a  forest-like  shade.  ...  Its 
stature  was  exalted  above  all  of  the  trees  of  the  field ; 
and  its  boughs  were  multiplied,  and  its  branches  be- 
came long.  .  .  .  All  the  birds  of'  the  heavens  made 
their  nests  in  its  boughs ;  and  under  its  branches  did 
all  the  beasts  of  the  field  bring  forth  their  young, 
.  .  .  Thus  was  it  fair  in  its  greatness,  in  the  length 
of  its  branches  .  .  .  nor  was  any  tree  in  the  garden 
of  God  like  unto  it  for  beauty."  7 

The  cedar  of  Lebanon  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  various  smaller  trees  which  in  America  are  known 
as  "  cedars."  It  is  own  brother  to  the  great  deodar 
or  god-tree  of  the  Himalayas  and  the  forest  giants  on 
the  high  slopes  of  the  Atlas,  Taurus  and  Amanus 
ranges.  In  the  days  when  Hiram  of  Tyre  provided 

2  Psalm  80:10.  5  Ezekiel  17:23. 

s  Jeremiah  22:7.  «  Isaiah  2:13. 

4  Song  of  Songs  5:15,  1  Ezekiel  31:3f. 

[168] 


THE    CEDARS    OF   THE   LORD 

timber  for  Solomon's  Temple,  large  cedar  woods 
spread  over  Lebanon,  and  apparently  grew  also  on  the 
sides  6f  Anti-Lebanon  and  Hermon ;  but  generation 
after  generation  these  trees  became  fewer  in  number. 
Even  in  the  sixth  century,  Justinian  found  it  difficult 
to  secure  sufficiently  large  beams  for  the  Church  of  the 
Virgin  (now  the  Mosque  el-Aksa)  in  Jerusalem. 
Many  efforts  were  made  to  preserve  the  trees,  which 
had  long  been  considered  of  a  peculiar  sanctity. 
High  up  on  the  rocky  sides  of  Lebanon,  Hadrian 
carved  his  imperial  command  that  the  groves  should 
be  left  untouched.  Modern  Maronite  patriarchs 
have  excommunicated  those  who  cut  down  the  "  trees 
of  God."  But  the  roving  goats  who  nibble  the  tender 
young  saplings  have  regarded  neither  emperor  nor 
patriarch.  Now  there  is  little  timber  of  any  kind  in 
Syria,  and  the  profiles  of  the  mountains  cut  sharp 
against  the  sky.  Of  the  cedars  there  remain  only 
seven  groups,  the  finest  of  which  is  the  one  we  are 
visiting,  above  the  village  of  Besherreh. 

A  former  governor  of  Lebanon,  Rustum  Pasha, 
protected  this  grove  against  roving  animals  by  a 
well-built  stone  wall,  and  in  recent  years  the  number 
of  young  trees  has  consequently  slightly  increased. 
But  the  really  old  cedars  grow  fewer  century  by  cen- 
tury ;  indeed,  young  and  old  together,  their  number  is 
pathetically  few.  Twelve  of  the  very  largest  are  usu- 
ally counted  as  the  patriarchs  of  the  grove.  The 
mountaineers  say  that  these  had  their  origin  when 

[169] 


SYRIA,   THE    LAND    OF   LEBANON 

Christ  and  the  eleven  faithful  Disciples  once  visited 
Lebanon,  and  each  stuck  his  staff  into  the  earth, 
where  it  took  root  and  became  an  undying  cedar.  In 
all  there  are  about  four  hundred  trees.  A  local  tra- 
dition says  that  they  can  never  be  counted  twice  alike  ; 
and,  in  fact,  I  have  yet  to  find  two  travelers  who 
agree  as  to  the  number.  We  need  not,  however, 
seek  a  miraculous  explanation  of  this  peculiar  lack 
of  unanimity.  It  is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact 
that  several  trunks  will  grow  so  close  together  that 
no  one  can  say  whether  they  should  be  considered  as 
a  single  tree,  or  as  two  or  more.  When  no  fewer 
than  seven  trunks  almost  touch  at  the  bottom,  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  tell  whether  they  sprang  originally 
from  one  seed  or  from  many. 

Yet  though  the  cedars  are  few  in  number,  these  few 
are  kingly  trees.  Their  height  is  never  more  than  a 
hundred  feet;  but  some  have  trunks  over  forty  feet 
around,  and  mighty,  wide-spreading  limbs  which, 
cover  a  circle  two  or  three  hundred  feet  in  circumfer- 
ence. Those  which  have  been  unhindered  in  their 
growth  are  tall  and  symmetrical ;  others  are  gnarled 
and  knotted,  with  room  for  the  Swiss  Family  Robin- 
son to  keep  house  in  their  great  forks.  Some  years 
ago  a  monk  lived  in  a  hollow  of  one  of  the  trunks. 
When  you  climb  a  little  way  into  a  cedar  and  look  out 
over  the  whorl  of  horizontal  branches,  the  upper  sur- 
face seems  as  smooth  and  soft  as  a  rug,  upon  which 
have  apparently  fallen  the  uplifted  cones.  Indeed, 

[170] 


I 


THE    CEDARS    OF   THE   LORD 

the  close-growing  foliage  will  bear  you  almost  as  well 
as  a  carpeted  floor.  Eighty  feet  above  the  ground, 
I  have  thrown  myself  carelessly  down,  not  upon  a 
bough,  but  upon  just  the  network  of  interlacing  twigs, 
and  rested  as  securely  as  if  I  had  been  lying  in  an 
enormous  hammock. 

Most  of  the  cedars  are  crowded  so  closely  that 
their  growth  has  been  very  irregular.  Sometimes 
two  branches  from  different  trees  rub  against 
each  other  until  the  bark  is  broken ;  then  the  exuding 
sap  cements  them  together,  and  in  the  course  of  years 
they  grow  into  each  other  so  that  you  cannot  tell 
where  one  tree  ends  and  the  other  begins.  Just  over 
my  tent  two  such  Siamese  Twins  were  joined  by  a 
common  bough  a  foot  in  diameter.  Near  by  I  found 
three  trees  thus  united,  and  another  traveler  reports 
having  seen  no  fewer  than  four  connected  by  a  single 
horizontal  branch  which  apparently  drew  its  sap  from 
all  of  the  parent  and  foster-parent  trunks.  Even 
more  remarkable  is  a  cedar  which  has  been  burned 
completely  through  near  the  ground,  and  yet  draws 
so  much  sap  from  an  adjoining  tree  that  its  upper 
branches  continue  to  bear  considerable  foliage. 

The  wood  is  slightly  aromatic,  hard,  very  close- 
grained,  and  takes  a  high  polish.  It  literally  never 
rots.  The  most  striking  characteristic  of  the  cedars 
is  their  almost  incredible  vitality.  The  oldest  of  all 
are  gnarled  and  twisted,  but  they  have  the  rough 
strength  of  muscle-bound  giants.  Each  year  new 

[171] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

cones  rise  above  the  broad,  green  branches,  and 
the  balsamic  juice  flows  fresh  from  every  break 
in  the  bark.  In  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  they  still 
bring  forth  fruit  in  old  age,  and  are  full  of  sap  and 
green.  "  There  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  rotten 
cedar.  The  wood  is  incorruptible.  The  imperish- 
able cedar  remains  untouched  by  rot  or  insect." 
This  is  not  the  extravagant  statement  of  a  hurried 
tourist,  but  the  sober  judgment  of  the  late  Dr. 
George  E.  Post,  who  was  recognized  as  the  world's 
greatest  authority  on  Syrian  botany.  The  whole 
side  of  one  of  the  largest  trees  has  been  torn  away 
by  lightning,  but  the  barkless  trunk  is  as  hard  as- 
ever.  The  single  enemy  feared  by  a  full-grown  ce- 
dar is  the  thunderbolt.  "  The  voice  of  Jehovah 
.  .  .  breaketh  in  pieces  the  cedars  of  Lebanon." 8 
One  or  two  trees  felled  by  this  power  have  lain  pros- 
trate for  a  generation;  but  their  wood  will  still  turn 
the  edge  of  a  penknife.  Here  and  there,  visitors 
to  the  grove  have  stripped  off  a  bit  of  bark  and  in- 
scribed their  names  on  the  exposed  wood.  "  Mar- 
tin, 1769,"  "  Girandin,  1791  "—  the  edges  of  the 
letters  are  as  hard  and  clear-cut  as  if  they  had  been 
carved  last  season. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  ancients  chose  this  im- 
perishable timber  for  their  temples.  The  cedar  roof 
of  the  sanctuary  of  Diana  of  Ephesus  is  said  to  have 
remained  unrotted  for  four  hundred  years,  while  the 

8  Psalm  29 :5. 
[172] 


THE    CEDARS    OF   THE   LORD 

beams  of  the  Temple  of  Apollo  at  Utica  lasted  al- 
most twelve  centuries. 

Probably  the  wood  is  so  enduring  because  it  grows 
so  slowly.  When  you  are  told  that  a  slender  shoot, 
hardly  shoulder-high,  is  ten  or  twelve  years  old,  you 
begin  to  speculate  as  to  the  probable  age  of  the  pa- 
triarchs of  the  grove.  On  a  broken  branch  only 
thirty  inches  in  diameter  I  once,  with  the  aid  of  a 
magnifying  glass,  counted  577  rings  —  577  years. 
And  some  of  the  cedars  are  forty  feet  and  over  in 
girth !  Certainly  these  must  be  a  thousand  years  old, 
probably  two  thousand.  We  are  tempted  to  believe 
that  one  or  two  of  the  most  venerable  were  saplings 
when  the  axemen  of  Hiram  came  cutting  cedar  logs 
for  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  The  most  rugged  and 
weather-beaten  of  them  all,  called  the  Guardian  — 
surely  this  hoary  giant  of  the  forest  has  lived 
through  all  the  ages  since  Solomon,  and  from  his 
lofty  throne  on  Lebanon  has  calmly  looked  down  over 
Syria  and  the  Great  Sea  while  Jew  and  Assyrian, 
Persian  and  Egyptian,  Greek  and  Roman,  Arab  and 
Crusader  and  Turk,  have  labored  and  fought  and 
sinned  and  died  for  the  possession  of  this  goodly 
land! 

The  trees  rise  on  half  a  dozen  little  knolls  quite 
near  to  the  edge  of  the  plateau;  and  within  a  few 
minutes'  climb  are  a  number  of  tall,  steeple-like  rocks 
which,  through  the  erosion  of  the  softer  stone,  have 
become  almost  entirely  cut  off  from  the  main  mass 

[i73] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

of  the  mountain.  One  such  group,  known  to  Amer- 
ican residents  of  Syria  as  the  "  Cathedral  Rocks,"  is 
reached  by  following  a  knife-edge  ridge  far  out  over 
the  valley.  There  is  barely  room  for  a  narrow 
foot-path  along  the  top,  and  a  misstep  would  mean  a 
fall  of  many  hundred  feet ;  but  at  its  western  end  the 
ridge  broadens  out  into  a  group  of  slender,  tower- 
like  cliffs.  When  you  stand  on  the  farthest  of  these 
there  is  a  feeling  of  spaciousness  and  isolation  as  if 
you  were  indeed  upon  the  loftiest  pinnacle  of  some 
gigantic  cathedral,  though  no  man-built  spire  towers 
to  such  a  dizzy  height. 

A  half-hour  of  hard  and,  in  places,  dangerous 
climbing  down  from  the  cedars  brings  one  to  where 
the  Kadisha  River  bursts  from  a  cave  in  the 
rock.  Like  many  another  cavern  in  Lebanon,  this 
is  of  great  depth  and  has  never  been  thoroughly 
explored.  We  contented  ourselves  with  penetrating 
it  a  few  hundred  feet ;  for  it  was  impossible  to  avoid 
slipping  into  the  stream  now  and  then,  and  the  water, 
fresh  from  the  snow-pockets  on  the  summits  above, 
was  only  twelve  degrees  above  the  freezing-point.  The 
entrance  is  barely  ten  feet  in  diameter,  but  the 
cave  soon  divides  into  several  branches,  one  of 
which  is  beautifully  adorned  with  translucent  stalac- 
tites and,  about  seventy  yards  from  the  mouth,  leads 
up  to  a  large  rock-chamber.  The  river  flows  out  from 
the  mountain  with  great  rapidity  and,  just  below 
the  source,  leaps  over  a  precipice  in  a  white  water- 
Cm] 


The  source  of  the  Kadisha  River.     The  rocks  in  the  back- 
ground mark  the  edge  of  the   plateau  on  which  are   sit- 
uated the  Cedars  of  Lebanon 


THE   CEDARS   OF   THE   LORD 

fall  forty  feet  high,  so  delicate  and  lacelike  in  its 
beauty  that  it  is  known  as  the  "  Bridal  Veil." 

Farther  down  the  valley,  the  monastery  of  Kanobin 
hugs  the  side  of  a  cliff  four  hundred  feet  above  the 
river-bed.  This  is  literally  "  the  monastery " 
(Greek,  koinobion),  and  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  the 
land.  It  is  said  to  have  been  founded  over  sixteen 
hundred  years  ago  by  the  Roman  emperor  Theodo- 
sius  the  Great,  and  for  centuries  it  has  been  the 
nominal  seat  of  the  Maronite  patriarchs.  In  1829, 
Asad  esh-Shidiak,  the  first  Protestant  martyr  of 
Lebanon,  was  walled  up  in  a  near-by  cave.  This  un- 
fortunate man  was  chained  to  the  rock  by  his  Maron- 
ite persecutors  and  about  his  neck  was  fastened  one 
end  of  a  long  rope  which  hung  out  through  an  open- 
ing in  the  cave  by  the  roadside.  Each  Catholic  who 
passed  by  gave  the  rope  a  vicious  tug,  and  Shidiak 
soon  died  of  torture  and  starvation. 

The  valley  of  the  Holy  River  is  full  of  old 
hermits'  caves;  but  these  are  now  untenanted,  and 
we  found  no  monks  even  at  the  great  convent.  In  a 
parallel  valley,  however,  is  a  monastery  which  is 
still  crowded  and  busy.  Deir  Keshaya  boasts  a 
printing-press,  a  good  library  and  a  staff  of  a  hun- 
dred monks.  This  religious  retreat  has  the  most 
secluded  and  beautiful  situation  imaginable.  It  lies 
in  a  very  narrow  canon  hemmed  in  by  sheer  rocks. 
Yet,  though  surrounded  by  nature  in  its  most  grand 
and  forbidding  aspects,  the  narrow  strip  of  culti- 

[175] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

vated  land  along  the  river  bank  is  rich  with  verdure, 
a  veritable  Garden  of  the  Lord. 

The  monastery  not  only  spreads  along  the  face  of 
the  cliff,  but  penetrates  far  into  the  mountain. 
What  you  see  of  it  from  without  is  hardly  more  than 
the  fa9ade  of  a  huge,  rambling  structure  whose  prin- 
cipal part  consists  of  natural  caves  and  chambers 
rudely  cut  in  the  native  rock.  Through  a  little 
wooden  door  we  were  admitted  to  the  largest  cavern, 
where  we  saw,  hanging  from  staples  set  securely  into 
its  walls,  a  number  of  great,  cruel  chains.  People 
who  are  possessed  of  devils  are  fastened  here  by 
the  neck  and  ankles,  and  during  the  night  an  angel 
comes  and  drives  away  the  demon.  The  treatment 
has  never  been  known  to  fail ;  for  if  the  morning  finds 
the  sufferer  still  uncured,  that  merely  shows  that  he 
did  not  have  a  devil  after  all,  but  was  just  an  ordi- 
nary lunatic  for  whom  the  monastery  did  not  prom- 
ise relief. 

Back  of  the  cedars,  there  are  also  many  fascinating 
excursions.  The  ranges  of  Syria  being  geologically 
"  old  "  mountains  which  are  worn  and  rounded,  you 
can,  by  taking  a  somewhat  circuitous  route,  reach  al- 
most any  summit  on  horseback,  but  it  is  much  more 
fun  to  go  straight  up  the  steepest  slopes  on  foot. 
About  2,500  feet  above  the  grove  is  a  line  of  gently 
rolling  plateaus  whose  stones  have  been  broken  and 
smoothed  by  millenniums  of  snow  and  ice.  You  see 
acre  after  acre  entirely  covered  with  clean,  flat 

[176] 


THE   CEDARS   OF   THE   LORD 

fragments  which  measure  from  one  to  five  inches  in 
length.  Viewed  from  a  distance,  their  appearance  is 
exactly  like  that  of  the  soft  surface  of  a  wheat-field. 
The  only  vegetable  life  consists  of  tiny  bunches  of  a 
low,  hardy  plant  with  wooly  gray-green  leaves.  We 
saw  one  little  butterfly  fluttering  about  lonesomely  in 
the  vast  desolation. 

Sheltered  from  sun  and  wind  just  under  the  high- 
est ridges  are  snow-pockets  —  great,  funnel-shaped 
depressions  which  during  the  hottest  summer  send 
down  their  moisture  through  the  mountain  mass  to 
the  cave-born  rivers  of  western  Syria.  One  who 
has  not  been  there  would  never  suspect  how  cold 
it  can  be  in  mid-summer  on  these  higher  slopes 
of  Lebanon.  The  direct  rays  of  the  sun  are, 
of  course,  very  hot,  and  the  wise  traveler  protects 
his  head  by  a  pith  helmet.  Yet  the  gloomy  gorges 
are  always  chilly,  the  wind  is  biting,  and  the  nights 
are  positively  cold.  When  tenting  among  the  ce- 
dars, I  slept  regularly  under  heavy  blankets,  and 
once  or  twice  reached  down  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
and  pulled  over  me  the  rug  which  lay  beside  my  cot. 
The  first  time  we  climbed  the  mountain  back  of  our 
camp,  the  wind  was  so  cold  and  penetrating  that  we 
could  remain  only  a  few  minutes  on  the  summit, 
though  we  wore  the  heaviest  of,  sweaters  and  had 
handkerchiefs  tied  over  our  faces. 

At  another  ascent,  however,  we  were  more  fortu- 
nate, for  we  found  only  a  slight  breeze  blowing  on 

[i77] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

the  summit.  The  "  Back  of  the  Stick,"  as  the  na- 
tives call  this  highest  ridge  of  Lebanon,  affords 
a  view  over  the  top  of  all  Syria.  Northward 
stretches  the  long  succession  of  rounded  summits,  down 
to  the  left  of  which  can  be  seen  the  white  houses  of 
the  seaport  of  Tripoli.  To  the  south  are  other  lofty 
peaks,  though  all  are  lower  than  ours.  Jebel  Sun- 
nin,  which  seems  so  mighty  when  viewed  from  the 
harbor  of  Beirut,  now  lies  far  below  us.  Mount  Her- 
mon  rises  still  majestic  seventy  miles  away,  yet  even 
the  topmost  peak  of  great  Hermon  is  not  so  high  as 
the  spot  on  which  we  stand.  To  the  east,  across  the 
long,  broad  valley  of  the  Bika',  rises  the  parallel 
range  of  Anti-Lebanon.  Westward  the  magnificent 
amphitheater  which  we  have  come  to  think  of  as  pe- 
culiarly our  own  opens  out  to  where  the  Mediter- 
ranean, like  a  sheet  of  beaten  gold,  seems  to  slope  far 
up  to  the  azure  sky. 

Yet,  after  a  while,  we  turned  from  this  wonderful 
panorama  to  indulge  in  childish  play.  With  a  crow- 
bar brought  for  the  purpose,  we  dislodged  large 
rocks  from  the  summit  and  sent  them  spinning  down 
the  eastern  side  of  the  mountain.  Some  of  them  must 
have  weighed  several  tons,  and  they  tumbled  down 
the  slope  with  tremendous  momentum.  The  first 
thousand  feet  they  almost  took  at  a  bound;  then, 
reaching  a  more  gentle  decline,  they  would  spin  along 
on  their  edges.  Now  they  would  strike  some  in- 
equality and,  leaping  a  hundred  yards,  land  amid  a 

[178] 


THE   CEDARS    OF   THE   LORD 

cloud  of  scattering  stones ;  now  they  would  burst  in 
mid-air  from  centrifugal  force,  with  a  noise  like  a 
cannon  shot ;  now  some  very  large  stone,  surviving 
the  perils  of  the  descent,  would  arrive  at  the  base 
of  our  peak  and,  on  the  apparently  level  plateau  be- 
low, would  very  slowly  roll  and  roll  and  roll  as  if  it 
possessed  some  motive  power  of  its  own.  Several 
days  later  we  met  a  wandering  shepherd  who  told  us 
that,  while  dozing  beneath  the  shade  of  a  cliff  far 
down  the  mountainside,  he  had  been  suddenly  awak- 
ened by  a  terrific  cannonading  and  had  sat  there  for 
hours  in  trembling  wonderment  at  the  demoniac 
forces  which  were  tumbling  Mount  Lebanon  down 
over  his  head. 

One  evening  we  strolled  out  to  the  edge  of  our 
plateau  and  saw  the  whole  countryside  a-twinkle  with 
lights.  It  was  the  anniversary  of  the  Finding  of  the 
True  Cross.  When  St.  Helena,  mother  of  Constan- 
tine  the  Great,  discovered  the  precious  relic  sixteen 
hundred  years  ago,  beacons  prepared  in  anticipation 
of  the  success  of  the  search  were  lighted  and  the  glad 
news  was  thus  flashed  from  Jerusalem  to  the  emperor 
at  Constantinople.  In  commemoration  of  that  joy- 
ous event,  annual  signal  fires  still  burn  along  the  land 
of  Lebanon.  Far  down  in  black  gorges  we  saw  the 
lights  flash  out.  North  and  south  of  us,  unseen 
villages  on  the  hillsides  kindled  their  beacons. 
Higher  up,  in  wild  pine  forests,  the  lonely  charcoal- 
burners  made  their  camp-fires  blaze  brighter;  and 

[i79] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

even  on  the  bare,  bleak  summits  there  shone  here  and 
there  tiny  gleams  of  light.  Amid  the  solemn  quiet 
of  our  mountain  solitude,  we  watched  the  beacons 
flash  out  around  us  and  below  us  and  above,  until  all 
Lebanon  seemed  starred  with  the  bright  memorials  of 
the  Cross  which  this  old,  old  land,  through  long  cen- 
turies of  oppression  and  ignorance  and  bigotry,  has 
never  quite  forgot. 

We  spent  a  month  in  the  cedar  grove,  and  never 
had  a  dull  day.  At  dawn  we  could  look  out  of  the 
tent  to  where  the  green  branches  framed  a  charming 
bit  of  blue,  distant  sea.  After  breakfast  the  studious 
man  would  climb  up  into  his  favorite  fork  and  en- 
sconce himself  there  with  pen  and  ink  and  paper  and 
books  and  cushions.  The  adventurous  man  would 
scramble  up  to  the  topmost  bough  of  some  lofty  tree 
and  stretch  out  on  its  soft  twigs  for  a  sun-bath.  The 
lazy  man  would  curl  up  against  a  comfortable  root, 
to  smoke  and  dream  away  the  morning  hours. 
Sketching  and  photographing  and  mountain  climbs 
were  interspersed  with  unsuccessful  hunting  expedi- 
tions and  aimless  conversations  with  Maronite  priests 
who  had  come  up  to  visit  their  little  rustic  chapel  in 
the  grove.  After  supper  came  the  camp-fire,  with  its 
cozy  sparkle  and  its  friendly  confidences  and  the  black 
background  of  the  forest  all  around.  Then,  by  eight 
o'clock  at  the  latest,  we  snuggled  into  our  blankets 
and,  in  the  crisp,  balsam-scented  air,  slept  the  clock 
around.  Sometimes  the  full  moon  shone  so  brightly 

Ti8o] 


THE   CEDARS    OF   THE   LORD 

that  the  whole  mountain  would  take  on  a  soft  silver 
glow,  against  which  colors  could  be  distinguished 
almost  as  well  as  by  day.  Now  and  then  there  would 
be  a  cold,  foggy  morning;  but  the  trees  kept  out  the 
mists  and,  although  a  solid  wall  of  white  surrounded 
us,  within  the  grove  it  was  clear  and  dry  and  home- 
like. 

The  shelter,  the  support,  the  background,  the  in- 
spiration of  all  the  camp  life,  were  the  great,  solemn 
trees.  After  a  while  you  come  to  love  them,  or  rather 
to  reverence  them.  They  are  so  large,  so  old;  they 
have  such  marked  individuality.  The  cedars  are 
regal  rather  than  beautiful.  Rough  and  knotted 
and  few  in  number,  at  first  sight  they  are  a  little  dis- 
appointing; but,  like  the  mountains  around  them, 
they  become  more  impressive  day  by  day.  These 
thousand-year-old  trees  seem  to  stand  aloof  from  the 
hurry  and  bustle  of  the  twentieth  century,  as  though 
they  were  absorbed  in  thoughts  of  earlier,  and  per- 
haps wiser,  days.  After  you  have  lived  for  a  time 
beneath  their  shade,  their  solemn  magnificence  begins 
to  quiet  your  spirit ;  and  when  the  glorious  moon- 
light floods  the  mountain  and  casts  black  shadows 
down  the  deep  gorges  that  drop  away  to  the  distant 
sea,  it  is  easy  to  behold  in  the  witching  light  the  pic- 
ture that  these  ancient  trees  saw  in  the  long  ago. 
Dark  groves  of  cedars  nestle  once  more  in  the  valleys 
and  sweep  over  the  mountain-tops  in  great  waves  of 
green ;  a  stronger  peasantry  speaks  a  different  tongue 

[181] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

in  the  fields  below  that  are  brighter  and  the  orchards 
that  are  heavier  with  fruit;  and  from  the  depths  of 
the  moon-painted  forest  there  comes  the  ring  of  ten 
thousand  axes  that  are  hewing  down  the  choicest 
trunks  for  the  Temple  of  the  Lord. 

Then  the  vision  fades,  and  with  a  sense  of  personal 
loss  and  a  regret  that  is  almost  anger,  you  look  out 
again  from  under  the  dark  branches  of  the  little 
grove  to  the  bleak,  bare  mountainside,  and  the  wind  in 
the  topmost  boughs  seems  to  sing  the  lament  of 
Zechariah  — 

"Wail,  O  fir  tree, 

For  the  cedar  is  fallen, 
Because  the  glorious  ones  are  destroyed: 
Wail,  O  ye  oaks  of  Bashan, 

For  the  strong  forest  is  come  down." ' 

Yet  still  some  glorious  ones  of  the  strong  forest 
rise  proudly  on  their  throne  in  Lebanon.  This  tree, 
so  beautiful  that  it  is  pictured  on  the  seal  of  the  col- 
lege at  Beirut,  has  been  called  the  Symmetrical  Cedar. 
These  many  trunks,  apparently  springing  from  a 
single  root,  we  know  as  the  Seven  Sisters.  Those 
two  that  stand  side  by  side  without  the  wall  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  main  group,  are  the  Sentinels.  On 
a  hillside  are  St.  John  and  St.  James,  immense, 
fatherly  trees  with  trunks  forty-five  feet  in  circum- 
ference and  gigantic  forks  in  which  a  dozen  people 

9  Zechariah  11  -M. 
[182] 


The  Guardian,  the  oldest  Cedar  of  Lebanon 


THE   CEDARS   OF   THE   LORD 

could  sit  together.  Then  there  is  the  Guardian,  old- 
est and  largest  of  all,  its  great  trunk  twisted  and 
gnarled  by  struggles  against  the  storms  of  ages,  the 
names  which  famous  travelers  carved  a  century  ago 
not  yet  covered  by  its  slowly  growing  bark.  But  the 
knotted,  wrinkled,  lightning-scarred  giant  is  crowned 
by  a  garland  of  evergreen,  and  the  venerable  tree, 
which  perhaps  heard  the  sound  of  Hiram's  axemen, 
may  still  be  standing  proudly  erect  when  the  achieve- 
ments of  our  own  century  are  dimmed  in  the  ancient 
past. 

"  The  Cedars  of  the  Lord  " —  we  understand  now 
why  the  peasantry  of  Lebanon  call  them  thus.  It 
has  become  our  own  name  for  them  too.  Long  be- 
fore we  ride  downward  from  their  royal  solitude  to 
the  Great  Sea  and  the  great  busy  world,  we  have 
come  to  think  of  them  as  in  deed  and  truth, 

"  The  trees  of  Jehovah  .  .  . 
The  cedars  of  Lebanon,  which  He  hath  planted." 


[183] 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE      GIANT      STONES      OF      BAALBEK 

THE  most  impressive  of  all  the  ancient  temples 
of  Syria  can  now  be  reached  by  a  comfort- 
able railway  journey  from  either  Damascus 
or  Beirut.  But  this  way  the  traveler  comes  upon 
the  ruins  too  quickly  to  appreciate  adequately  their 
splendid  situation  and  marvelous  size.  I  shall  al- 
ways be  thankful  that,  on  my  first  visit  to  Baalbek,  I 
approached  it  very  slowly  as  I  rode  from  our  camp 
among  the  cedars  of  Lebanon.  For  the  longer  you 
look  at  these  temples  and  the  greater  the  distance 
from  which  you  behold  them,  the  more  fully  do  you 
realize  that  whatever  race  first  built  a  shrine  here 
chose  the  spot  which,  of  all  their  land,  had  the 
largest,  noblest  setting  for  a  sanctuary;  and  the 
better  also  do  you  understand  that  these  struc- 
tures had  to  be  made  unique  in  their  grandeur  be- 
cause anything  less  imposing  would  have  seemed 
paltry  in  comparison  with  the  surrounding  glories  of 
nature. 

Where  the  Bika'  is  highest  and  widest  and  most 
fertile,  on  a  foothill  of  Anti-Lebanon  which  projects 
far  enough  to  give  a  commanding  outlook  in  all 

[184] 


THE    GIANT    STONES    OF   BAALBEK 

directions,  stands  Baalbek,  the  City  of  the  Sun- 
God.  Far  northward  Hollow  Syria  leads  to  the 
open  wheat-lands  of  Horns  and  Hama;  at  the  south 
it  sinks  gently  to  the  foot  of  Hermon.  Back 
of  the  city  are  the  peaks  of  the  Eastern  Mountains, 
and  across  the  level  valley  rise  the  highest  summits 
of  Lebanon.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  approaching 
traveler  finds  it  difficult  at  first  to  realize  the 
magnitude  of  the  ruins.  Any  work  of  man  would 
be  dwarfed  by  the  magnificent  heights  which  look 
down  upon  Baalbek.  But  what  an  inspiration  these 
same  mountains  must  have  been  to  the  unknown  archi- 
tect who  conceived  the  daring  grandeur  of  the  Tem- 
ple of  the  Sun! 

When  I  viewed  the  ruins  from  the  summit  of  the 
highest  mountain  of  Lebanon,  their  columns  did  not 
seem  especially  large.  Then  I  remembered  that  there 
are  few  structures  whose  details  can  be  distinguished 
at  all  from  a  point  twenty  miles  away.  After  de- 
scending many  thousand  feet  through  rocky  ravines 
and  dry  water-courses,  we  came  out  on  the  Bika4  and 
again  saw  the  temples.  They  now  appeared  of  mod- 
erate size  and  very  near.  It  was  hard  to  believe  that 
a  few  minutes'  canter  would  not  bring  us  to  them 
and,  as  we  rode  across  the  monotonous  level  of  the 
valley,  it  seemed  as  if  each  new  mile  would  surely  be 
the  last.  When  I  had  traveled  for  an  hour  straight 
toward  their  slender  columns  and  found  them  ap- 
parently as  far  away  as  ever,  I  began  to  understand 

[185] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

that  these  temples  must  be  of  a  bigness  beyond  any- 
thing that  I  had  ever  seen  before. 

While  we  were  looking  toward  Mount  Hermon, 
whose  conical  summit  rose  from  behind  the  southern 
horizon,  the  hot,  shimmering  air  began  to  arrange 
itself  in  horizontal  layers  of  varying  density,  and 
before  our  wondering  eyes  there  grew  a  picture  of 
cool  and  shady  comfort.  Four  or  five  miles  away  a 
grove  of  date-palms  stood  beside  a  beautiful  blue  lake 
in  which  were  a  number  of  little  islands,  each  with  its 
cluster  of  bushes  or  its  group  of  trees;  and,  just  be- 
yond the  islands,  the  rippling  water  laved  the  steep 
sides  of  Mount  Hermon.  It  was  a  cheering  sight 
for  the  tired  traveler.  This  was  no  freak  of  an 
imagination  crazed  by  privation  and  exhaustion. 
Everything  was  as  clear-cut  and  distinct  as  were  the 
temples  of  Baalbek.  We  knew  very  well  that  there 
was  no  lake  in  the  Bika'  and  that  Mount  Hermon 
was  not  within  fifty  miles  of  where  it  seemed  to  be; 
yet  we  agreed  upon  every  detail  of  the  wonderful 
mirage.  We  counted  the  wooded  islets ;  we  pointed 
out  to  each  other  the  beauty  of  the  shrubbery  and 
the  symmetry  of  the  waving  palm  trees;  we  remarked 
upon  the  sharp  reflections  of  the  branches  in  the 
clear  water.  Then,  while  we  looked,  the  islands  be- 
gan to  swim  around,  the  bushes  shrank  together,  the 
trees  shifted  their  positions,  the  blue  water  faded 
into  a  misty  white,  old  Hermon  receded  far  into  the 
background  —  and  soon  all  that  was  left  were  two 

[186] 


THE    GIANT    STONES    OF   BAALBEK 

or  three  dusty  palms  bowing  listlessly  over  the  dry, 
brown  earth  in  the  sizzling  heat. 

I  had  always  thought  of  Baalbek  as  a  magnificent 
ruin  in  the  midst  of  a  wilderness ;  at  best,  I  expected 
to  find  huddled  beneath  the  temples  a  tiny  hamlet 
like  that  at  Palmyra.  But  as  we  came  nearer  to  the 
spot  of  green  about  the  columns,  it  grew  larger  and 
larger,  and  finally  opened  out  into  a  prosperous- 
looking  town  of  five  thousand  inhabitants  besides,  as 
we  discovered  later,  a  garrison  of  Turkish  soldiers 
and  a  host  of  summer  visitors.  The  bazaars  were 
busy  and  noisy,  and  the  half-dozen  hotels  were  filled 
with  the  cream  of  Syrian  society.  Gay  young  prodi- 
gals from  Beirut  clattered  recklessly  along  on  blooded 
mares,  or  lolled  back  in  rickety  barouches,  talking 
French  to  pretty  girls  whose  silk  dresses  were  so 
nearly  correct  that  our  masculine  eyes  could  not  de- 
tect just  what  was  the  matter  with  them. 

The  German  archaeologists  who  were  then  exca- 
vating among  the  ruins  told  us  that  the  hotel  where 
we  had  planned  to  lodge  was  incorrectly  constructed 
and  would  surely  fall  down  some  day,  and  advised 
us  to  take  rooms  at  the  more  substantial  building 
where  they  were  dwelling.  Here  we  found  one 
of  those  typically  cosmopolitan  companies  which  add 
so  much  variety  to  life  in  Syria.  Besides  the  Ger- 
mans, there  was  a  suave  little  Turkish  gentleman,  a 
very  amiable  Armenian  lady,  a  radiantly  beautiful 
Hungarian,  an  English  "  baroness  "  who  did  not  ex- 

[187] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

plain  where  she  had  obtained  this  obsolete  title,  and 
a  couple  of  those  innocently  daring  American  maiden- 
ladies  who  blunder  unprotected  through  foreign  coun- 
tries whose  languages  they  do  not  understand,  and 
yet  somehow  never  seem  to  get  into  serious  trouble. 

Everybody  but  the  American  ladies  spoke  French, 
so  we  had  several  delightful  evenings  together.  With 
the  Armenian  we  discussed  the  recent  massacres  — 
when  the  Turkish  gentleman  was  not  by.  The  Hun- 
garian lady  discoursed  heatedly  upon  the  thesis  that 
the  Magyars  are  not  subjects  but  allies  of  the  Aus- 
trian Empire.  The  baroness  told  us  thrilling  tales 
of  social  and  political  intrigues  on  three  continents, 
some  of  which  we  believed.  The  Germans  interpreted 
enormous  drawings  of  their  excavations,  and  my  trav- 
eling companion  and  I  sang  negro  songs  to  the  ac- 
companiment of  a  tiny,  wheezy  melodion. 

Baalbek  is  deservedly  popular  as  a  summer  resort; 
for  its  elevation  is  nearly  four  thousand  feet  and, 
even  in  August,  there  are  few  uncomfortably  warm 
days.  In  fact,  the  city  has  long  borne  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  coolest  in  Syria.  The  Arab  geog- 
rapher Mukadassi,  who  lived  in  the  tenth  century, 
wrote  that  "  among  the  sayings  of  the  people  it  is 
related  how,  when  men  asked  of  the  cold,  *  Where 
shall  we  find  thee?  '  it  was  answered,  '  In  the  Belka,'  * 
and  when  they  further  said,  4  But  if  we  meet  thee  not 

i  East  of  the  Jordan,  between  Jabbok  and  Arnon  rivers. 
[188] 


THE    GIANT    STONES    OF   BAALBEK 

there  ?  '  then  the  cold  answered,  '  Verily,  in  Baalbek 
is  my  home.'  " 

The  most  attractive  features  of  the  city,  next  to  its 
refreshing  climate,  are  its  unusual  number  of  shaded 
streets  and  its  copious  supply  of  pure,  cold  water. 
Both  of  these  are  somewhat  rare  in  Syria.  In  this 
land  of  generous  orchards,  there  are  very  few  shade- 
trees  ;  and  during  the  long,  rainless  summer  the  flow 
of  the  springs  is  usually  husbanded  with  great  care. 
In  Baalbek,  however,  the  water  is  allowed  to  run  every- 
where in  almost  reckless  abundance.  It  gushes  out 
of  a  score  of  fountains ;  it  drives  the  mills,  waters  the 
gardens  and  rushes  alongside  the  streets  in  swift, 
clear  streams.  Our  own  supply  for  drinking  was 
drawn  from  one  of  the  springs ;  but  we  were  told  that 
even  the  water  in  the  deep  roadside  gutters  was  clean 
and  healthful. 

On  account  of  the  natural  advantages  of  its  situa- 
tion, it  is  probable  that  Baalbek  has  been  in  existence 
ever  since  the  time  when  men  first  began  to  build 
cities.  The  sub-structures  of  the  acropolis  are  lit- 
erally prehistoric,  that  is,  they  antedate  anything 
that  we  know  at  all  certainly  about  the  history  of 
the  place.  In  the  Book  of  Joshua  2  we  find  three 
references  to  "  Baal-gad  in  the  valley  (Hebrew, 
Bika()  of  Lebanon,"  but  the  identification  of  this 
place  with  Baalbek  is  far  from  certain.  The  Arab 
2  Joshua  11:17,  12:7,  13:5. 
[189] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

geographers  of  the  twelfth  century,  who  were  tre- 
mendously impressed  by  the  grandeur  of  the  ruins 
and  the  fertility  of  the  surrounding  district,  believed 
that  the  larger  temple  was  built  by  Solomon,  who 
also  had  a  magnificent  palace  here,  and  that  the  city 
was  given  by  him  as  a  dowry  to  Balkis,  Queen  of 
Sheba.  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  a  Spanish  rabbi  who 
visited  Syria  in  the  year  1163,  wrote  that  when  Solo- 
mon was  laying  the  heaviest  stones,  he  invoked  the 
assistance  of  the  genii. 

It  may  possibly  be  that  the  foundations  are  even 
older  than  the  time  of  Solomon;  but  there  is  no  his- 
torical notice  of  the  city  which  goes  back  of  the  Ro- 
man period.  Coins  of  the  first  century  A.  D.  indicate 
that  it  was  then  a  colony  of  the  Empire  and  was 
known  as  Heliopolis,  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Semitic  name  Baalbek. 

During  the  early  centuries  of  our  era  Heliop- 
olis became  exceedingly  prosperous  and,  indeed, 
famous.  The  emperor  Antoninus  Pius  is  said  to 
have  erected  here  a  temple  to  Jupiter  which  was  one 
of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  and  coins  struck  in 
Syria  about  200  A.  D.,  in  the  reign  of  Septimius 
Severus,  bear  the  representations  of  two  temples. 
During  this  period  the  worship  of  Baal  became  popu- 
lar far  beyond  the  borders  of  Syria,  and  the  Semitic 
sun-god  was  identified  with  the  Roman  Jupiter.  The 
empress  of  Severus  was  daughter  of  a  priest  of  Baal 
at  Horns,  only  sixty  miles  north  of  Baalbek.  When 

[190] 


THE    GIANT    STONES    OF   BAALBEK 

her  nephew  Varius  3  usurped  the  throne,  he  assumed 
the  new  imperial  title  of  "  High  Priest  of  the  Sun- 
God  "  and  erected  a  temple  to  that  deity  on  the  Pala- 
tine Hill.  At  Baalbek  itself  the  worship  was  accom- 
panied by  licentious  orgies  until  the  conversion  of 
Constantine  the  Great,  who  abolished  these  iniquitous 
practices,  erected  a  church  in  the  Great  Court  of  the 
Temple  of  the  Sun,  and  consecrated  a  bishop  to  rule 
over  the  still  heathen  inhabitants  of  the  new  see. 

Since  then,  the  history  of  Baalbek  has  been  par- 
allel to  that  of  every  other  stronghold  in  Syria,  a 
history  of  battles  and  sieges  and  massacres  and  a  long 
succession  of  conquerors  with  little  in  common  except 
their  cruelty.  When  the  Arabs  captured  the  city  in 
the  seventh  century,  they  converted  the  whole  temple 
area  into  a  fortress  whose  strategic  position,  over- 
looking the  Bika'  and  close  to  the  great  caravan 
routes,  enabled  it  to  play  an  important  part  in  the 
wars  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Many  a  great  army  has 
battered  at  this  citadel.  Iconoclastic  Moslems  have 
done  all  they  could  to  deface  its  carvings  and  statues, 
earthquake  after  earthquake  has  shaken  the  temples, 
scores  of  buildings  in  the  present  town  have  been  con- 
structed from  materials  taken  from  the  acropolis,  col- 

3  Varius  Avitus  Bassanius,  who  took  the  name  Heliogabalus 
upon  his  appointment  as  high  priest  of  the  sun-god,  was 
born  at  Horns,  A.  D.  204,  usurped  the  imperial  throne  at  the 
death  of  his  cousin  Caracalla  in  218  and,  after  a  brief  reign 
marked  chiefly  by  its  infamous  debaucheries,  was  murdered 
by  the  Praetorians  in  222. 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

umns  and  cornices  have  been  robbed  of  the  iron  clasps 
that  held  their  stones  together,  and  for  many  years  the 
Great  Court  was  choked  with  the  slowly  accumulating 
debris  of  a  squalid  village  which  lay  within  its  pro- 
tecting walls. 

Yet  neither  iconoclast  nor  sapper,  artilleryman  nor 
peasant,  has  been  able  to  destroy  the  majesty  of  the 
temples  of  Baalbek.  The  malice  of  the  image- 
breaker  cannot  tumble  down  thousand-ton  building- 
blocks  and  grows  weary  in  the  effort  to  deface  cor- 
nices eighty  feet  above  him.  Mosques  and  khans, 
barracks  and  castle  walls  have  been  built  out  of  this 
immense  quarry  of  ready-cut  stone,  yet  the  supply 
seems  hardly  diminished.  The  cannonballs  of  the 
Middle  Ages  fell  back  harmless  before  twenty  feet 
of  solid  masonry,  and  only  God's  earthquake  has  been 
able  to  shake  the  massive  foundations  of  the  Temple 
of  Baal. 

The  old  walls  of  the  acropolis  provide  many  a 
tempting  place  for  an  adventurous  clamber.  Be- 
side the  main  gateway  at  the  eastern  end  you  can 
ascend  a  winding  stairway,  half-choked  with  rub- 
bish; then  comes  some  hard  climbing  over  broken 
portions  of  the  upper  fortifications  and  a  bit  of  care- 
ful stepping  around  a  narrow  ledge  on  the  outside  of 
a  turret.  But  it  is  well  worth  a  little  exertion  and 
risk  to  reach  the  top  of  this  majestic  portal,  where 
you  can  lie  lazily  among  great  piles  of  broken  carv- 

[192] 


The  six  great  columns  and  the  Temple  of  Bacchus 


THE    GIANT    STONES   OF   BAALBEK 

ings  and  watch  the  long  shadows  of  the  setting  sun 
creep  over  what  have  been  called  "  the  most  beautiful 
mass  of  ruins  that  man  has  ever  seen  and  the  like  of 
which  he  will  never  behold  again." 

Our  superlative  expressions  are  prostituted  to  such 
base  uses  that  it  is  hard  to  find  words  to  picture  ade- 
quately these  colossal  structures.  To  say  that  they 
are  most  majestic,  gigantic,  stupendous,  is  only  to 
trifle  with  terms.  The  mere  partition-wall  beneath 
us  is  nineteen  feet  thick,  a  single  stone  in  one  of  the 
gate-towers  is  twenty-five  feet  long,  and  the  en- 
trance stairway,  now  half-buried  beneath  an  orchard, 
is  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  wide.  Everything  about 
us  is  immense ;  yet  the  parts  are  so  nicely  propor- 
tioned that  at  first  their  size  does  not  seem  very  un- 
usual. The  German  archaeologists  warned  me  against 
jumping  carelessly  from  one  stone  to  another.  "  The 
distance  between  them  will  be  greater  than  you  think.'' 
You  have  to  revise  your  ordinary  judgments  of  per- 
spective before  you  can  realize  that  yonder  little 
alcove  in  the  Great  Court  is  as  big  as  an  ordinary 
church,  or  can  make  yourself  believe  that  the  out- 
lines of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  enclose  an  area  as 
large  as  that  of  Westminster  Abbey,  or  can  break 
the  habit  of  thinking  condescendingly  of  the  "  Smaller 
Temple  "  -  which  is  one  of  the  finest  Graeco-Roman 
edifices  in  existence.  Suddenly  you  see  the  acropolis 
in  its  real  immensity  and  beauty,  and  then  you  under- 

[193] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 


The  Acropolis  of  Baalbek — 1,  The  Propylaea;  2,  The  Fore- 
court; 3,  The  Court  of  the  Altar;  4,  The  Basilica  of  Constantine; 
5,  The  Great  Altar  of  the  Temple;  6,  Byzantine  Baths;  7,  The 
Temple  of  Jupiter-Baal;  8,  The  Six  Standing  Columns;  9,  The 
Great  Stones  in  the  'Foundation  Wall;  10,  The  Temple  of 
Bacchus. 

stand  how  the  most  scholarly  of  all  Syrian  travelers 
could  say  that  the  temples  of  Baalbek  "  are  like  those 
of  Athens  in  lightness,  but  far  surpass  them  in  vast- 

[i94] 


THE    GIANT    STONES    OF   BAALBEK 

ness ;  they  are  vast  and  massive  like  those  of  Thebes, 
but  far  excel  them  in  airiness  and  grace."  4 

From  the  entrance  stairway  at  the  east  to  the 
Great  Temple  at  the  west,  the  arrangement  is  grandly 
cumulative.  Each  succeeding  architectural  feature 
is  larger  and  more  beautiful  than  that  which  pre- 
cedes it.  As  you  view  the  acropolis  from  above  the 
portico,  your  eye  is  drawn  on  and  on,  past  the  sym- 
metrical forecourt  and  the  great  Court  of  the  Altar, 
under  delicately  chiseled  arches  and  graceful  cornices, 
through  the  Triple  Gate  and  the  temple  portal,  up  to 
the  culmination  of  it  all  —  the  six  tall  columns  which 
still  rise  above  the  ruins  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun. 
No !  this  is  not  yet  the  climax  of  the  glories  of  Baal- 
bek; for  beyond  those  slender  shafts  the  hoary  head 
of  Lebanon,  towering  far  into  the  sky,  at  once  dwarfs 
and  dignifies,  enslaves  and  ennobles,  the  puny  mass- 
iveness  of  the  sanctuary  of  Baal. 

The  Great  Court,  or  "  Court  of  the  Altar,"  is  lit- 
tered with  sculptured  stones  —  pedestals  of  statues, 
inscriptions  in  Greek  and  Latin,  broken  columns, 
curbs  of  old  wells  and  fragments  of  fallen  cornices. 
On  each  side  of  the  few  remains  of  the  Basilica  of 
Constantine  are  Roman  baths,  which  are  carved  in  a 
graceful,  profuse  manner,  very  like  those  at  Nimes  in 
southern  France. 

The  sculptors  seem  to  have  worked  in  three  shifts. 
The  first  were  mere  stone-cutters  who  removed  sur- 

*  Edw.  Robinson,  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine,  III.  517. 
[1951 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

plus  material,  shaping  a  hemisphere  where  a  head 
was  to  appear  in  bas-relief,  and  indicating  the  rough 
outlines  of  leaves  and  flowers.  The  second  set  of 
workmen  carved  the  design  more  carefully,  leaving  it 
for  the  third,  the  master-artists,  to  give  the  final 
touches.  In  the  temple  baths  we  can  see  traces  of 
the  work  of  all  three  classes.  One  part  of  the  carv- 
ing is  finished  to  the  last  crinkle  of  a  rose  leaf;  an- 
other is  but  roughly  blocked  out  by  a  mere  artisan. 
It  seems  that  the  full  plan  for  the  courts  was  never 
carried  to  completion.  Some  think,  indeed,  that  the 
only  portion  of  the  Great  Temple  itself  which  was 
finished  was  the  peristyle. 

A  little  to  the.  southwest  of  the  Court  of  the  Altar 
stands  the  Temple  of  Bacchus.  This  suffers  the  fate 
of  great  men  whose  fame  is  eclipsed  by  that  of  their 
greater  brothers.  Yet  this  "  Smaller  Temple,"  as  it 
is  commonly  called,  is  larger  than  the  Parthenon,  and 
is  surpassed  in  the  beauty  of  its  architecture  by  no 
other  similar  edifice  outside  of  Athens.  It  was  orig- 
inally surrounded  by  forty-two  columns,  each  fifty- 
two  and  a  half  feet  in  height.  A  number  of  these 
have  been  overthrown  by  earthquakes  and  cannon- 
balls,  but  on  the  north  side  the  peristyle  is  still  nearly 
perfect.  One  of  the  columns  on  the  south  side  has 
fallen  against  the  temple,  yet,  although  made  up  of 
three  drums,  the  parts  are  held  so  firmly  together  by 
iron  clamps  that  it  has  broken  several  stones  of  the 
wall  without  itself  coming  to  pieces. 

[196] 


THE    GIANT   STONES    OF   BAALBEK 

Intricate  stone-cut  tracery  runs  riot  over  the 
double  frieze,  the  fluted  half-columns  and  niches,  and 
the  variously  shaped  panels  which  form  the  roof  of 
the  peristyle.  There  are  flowers  and  fruits  and 
leaves,  vines  and  grapes  and  garlands,  men  and 
women,  gods  and  goddesses,  satyrs  and  nymphs,  and 
the  youthful  god  himself,  surrounded  by  laughing 
bacchantes.  Most  elaborate  of  all  is  the  carving 
around  the  lofty  central  portal,  which  is  probably 
more  exquisite  in  detail  than  anything  else  of  its  kind 
in  existence.  The  door-posts  are  forty  feet  high, 
yet  they  are  chiseled  with  such  a  delicacy  that  they 
seem  almost  as  light  as  a  filigree  of  Damascus  silver- 
work.  Upon  the  under  side  of  the  lintel  a  great 
eagle  holds  a  staff  in  its  claws,  while  from  its  beak 
droop  long  garlands  of  flowers,  the  ends  of  which  are 
held  by  genii. 

Of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter-Baal,  which  was  the  prin- 
cipal structure  of  the  acropolis,  only  six  columns  are 
now  standing;  but  these  six  can  be  seen  far  up  and 
down  the  Bika'.  As  you  stand  beside  them  and  look 
up,  the  columns  appear  of  tremendous  bulk,  as  indeed 
they  are ;  yet  their  proportions  are  so  elegant  that  at 
a  little  distance  they  seem  almost  frail.  When  you 
view  them  from  many  miles  away,  they  appear  as 
tenuous  as  the  strings  of  a  colossal  harp,  awaiting 
the  touch  of  yEolus  himself  to  set  them  vibrating  in 
tremendous  harmony.  Now  the  columns,  crossed  by 
the  cornice  above,  resemble  a  titanic  gate  ready  to 

[i97] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

swing  open  to  the  Garden  of  the  Gods ;  now  they  are 
seen  in  profile,  like  a  giant  finger  pointing  upward. 
When  the  evening  glow  falls  upon  them,  the  stone 
takes  on  a  yellowish  tinge  and  the  slender  shafts  look 
like  a  golden  grating  which  some  old  master  has  put 
between  the  panels  of  his  daring  picture  of  brazen 
clouds  and  dazzling  mountaintops.  Even  the  long 
colonnades  of  Palmyra  lack  something  of  the  pecul- 
iar grandeur  of  the  six  columns  of  Baalbek,  as  they 
stand  guard  over  the  ruined  Temple  of  Baal,  with 
nothing  to  rival  their  towering  grandeur  save  the 
eternal  peaks  of  Lebanon. 

Yet,  though  these  columns  are  the  most  beautiful 
things  in  Baalbek,  they  are  not  its  greatest  marvel; 
for  in  the  foundations  of  the  acropolis  are  stones  so 
immense  that  we  can  only  guess  at  the  means  em- 
ployed to  quarry  and  transport  and  lift  into  place 
these  huge  masses  of  rock. 

Parallel  to  the  north  side  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun 
is  an  outer  wall  ten  feet  thick  and  composed  of  nine 
stones,  each  thirty  feet  long  and  thirteen  feet  high; 
in  the  west  foundation-wall  of  the  acropolis  are  seven 
other  stones  of  equal  size,  not  lying  upon  the  ground 
but  set  on  lower  tiers ;  and  just  above  these  is  a  series 
of  three  stones  which  are  probably  the  largest  ever 
handled  by  man. 

These  tremendous  three  were  so  renowned  in  an- 
cient times  that  the  temple  above  them  came  to  be 
known  as  the  Trilithon.  They  are  each  thirteen  feet 

[198] 


THE  GIANT  STONES  OF  BAALBEK 

high,  probably  ten  feet  thick,  and  their  lengths  are 
respectively  sixty-three,  sixty-three  and  a  half,  and 
sixty-four  feet.  It  is  hard  to  realize  their  true  di- 
mensions, however;  for  these  enormous  blocks  are  set 
into  the  wall  twenty-three  feet  above  the  ground,  and 
are  fitted  together  so  closely  that  you  can  hardly  in- 
sert the  edge  of  a  penknife  between  them.  Look  at 
them  as  long  as  you  will,  you  can  never  fully  see  their 
bigness.  Yet  if  only  one  were  taken  out  of  the  wall, 
a  space  would  be  left  large  enough  to  contain  a  Pull- 
man sleeping-car.  Each  stone,  though  it  seems  only 
of  fitting  size  for  this  noble  acropolis,  weighs  as  much 
as  many  a  coastwise  steamer.  If  it  were  cut  up  into 
building  blocks  a  foot  thick,  it  would  provide  enough 
material  to  face  a  row  of  apartment  houses  two  hun- 
dred feet  long  and  six  stories  high.  If  it  were  sawn 
into  flag-stones  an  inch  thick,  it  would  make  a  pave- 
ment three  feet  wide  and  over  six  miles  in  length. 

The  quarry  from  which  was  taken  the  material  for 
the  temples  is  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  the 
acropolis.  Here  lies  a  still  larger  stone  which,  on 
account  of  some  imperfection,  was  never  completely 
separated  from  the  mother  rock.  By  this  time  we 
have  no  breath  left  for  exclamations  ;  hyperbole  would 
be  impossible;  the  simple  measurements  are  astound- 
ing enough.  The  Hajr  el-Hiblaf  as  it  is  called,  is 
thirteen  feet  wide,  fourteen  feet  high,  seventy-one 

s  Literally,  "  the  stone  of  the  pregnant  woman."  Bearing  in 
mind  the  meaning  of  the  popular  name,  the  reader  will  easily 

[199] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

feet  long,  and  would  weigh  at  least  a  thousand  tons. 
It  does  not  arouse  our  wonderment,  however,  as  much 
as  do  those  other  stones,  only  a  little  smaller,  which 
were  actually  finished  and  built  into  the  wall. 

How,  indeed,  were  such  huge  blocks  moved  from  the 
quarry  to  the  acropolis?  How  were  they  lifted  into 
place  and  fitted  so  nicely  together?  The  question 
has  not  been  answered  to  our  entire  satisfaction. 
We  must  acknowledge  that  those  old  Syrians  —  if 
they  were  Syrians  —  could  perform  feats  of  en- 
gineering that  would  challenge  the  science  of  the 
present  day.  The  most  plausible  guess  is  that  a  long 
incline  was  built  all  the  way  from  the  quarry  to  the 
temple  wall  and  then,  through  a  prodigal  expenditure 
of  time  and  labor,  the  blocks  were  moved  slowly  up 
the  regular  slope,  a  fraction  of  an  inch  at  a  time,  by 
balancing  them  back  and  forth  on  wooden  rollers. 
But  it  is  almost  as  easy  to  believe  with  the  natives 
that  there  were  giants  in  those  days,  and  that  the 
great  stone  which  is  still  in  the  quarry  was  being 
carried  along  under  her  arm  by  a  young  woman, 
when  she  heard  her  baby  cry,  and  so  dropped  her 
burden  and  left  it  there  to  be  the  wonderment  of  us 
puny  folk. 

understand  just  how  and  why  I  have  modified  the  frank,  Ori- 
ental form  of  the  story  which  follows. 


[200] 


CHAPTER  XIV 

HAMATH      THE      GREAT 

NOW  that  the  French  railway  system  has  at  last 
extended  its  operations  into  northern  Syria, 
the  old  cities  of  Horns  and  Hama  will  doubt- 
less soon  lose  much  of  their  naivete  and  Oriental 
color  and  become  filled  with  dragomans  who  speak  a 
dozen  languages  and  shopkeepers  who  have  a  dozen 
prices  for  the  unwary  tourist.  Up  to  the  present, 
however,  the  district  has  been  little  touched  by  West- 
ern civilization,  and  we  saw  there  a  picture  of  Syrian 
life  and  customs,  and  especially  of  unspoiled  Syrian 
politeness,  not  to  be  found  in  more  accessible  cities. 
We  traveled  from  the  seaport  of  Tripoli  to  Horns 
in  a  big  yellow  diligence,  drawn  by  two  horses  and 
three  mules,  and  driven  by  a  couple  of  unkempt 
brigands  who,  in  the  absence  of  a  sufficiently  long 
whip,  urged  on  their  steeds  by  throwing  heavy  stones 
taken  from  a  well-filled  bushel-basket  which  was  kept 
under  the  seat.  The  Syrians  ordinarily  throw  like 
girls,  and  with  as  good  an  aim ;  but  these  men,  while 
the  coach  was  rolling  and  creaking  like  a  ship  in  a 
storm,  could  strike  the  left  ear  of  the  farthest  mule 

[201] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

without  any  danger  either  to  its  own  skull  or  to  the 
other  animals. 

This  ugly,  noisy  conveyance,  which  took  us  sixty 
miles  in  eleven  hours,  seemed  quite  out  of  place  as  a 
part  of  the  Syrian  landscape,  and  we  noticed  that  it 
surprised  the  rest  of  the  country  as  much  as  it 
had  us.  The  camels  were  the  most  astonished. 
Along  the  road  would  be  seen  approaching  a  distant 
caravan,  led  by  a  white-bearded  old  man  riding  a 
ridiculously  small  donkey.  Behind  him,  the  long  line 
of  great  animals  walked  and  chewed  in  a  slow  rhythm, 
and  looked  out  upon  the  world  with  a  solemn  gaze 
which  made  us  flippant  sons  of  a  young  republic  feel 
like  crawling  away  somewhere  and  hiding  for  a  few 
thousand  years  until  we  had  acquired  a  little  mellow- 
ness. 

But  our  mules  represented  the  spirit  of  modern 
progress ;  on  a  down  grade,  it  was  progress  at  the 
dizzying  speed  of  ten  miles  an  hour.  Now,  viewed 
from  the  .front,  a  camel  looks  like  an  overgrown 
chicken,  and  when  he  is  startled  he  acts  just 
like  a  flustered  fowl.  So  we  had  the  interesting  ex- 
perience of  frightening  half  to  death  thirty  of  these 
great,  clumsy  creatures,  who  scampered  and  scat- 
tered over  the  road  in  every  direction  except  the  right 
one,  ran  into  one  another  and  knocked  off  carefully 
balanced  loads,  and  tied  up  the  connecting  ropes  into 
intricate  knots  which  would  challenge  the  genius  of  an 
Alexander  to  untangle,  while  a  dozen  or  so  stalwart 

[202] 


HAMATH   THE    GREAT 


Arabs  cursed  us  with  a  choice  of  vituperation  not  to 
be  found  in  our  more  stolid  West  —  cursed  with 
a  long,  deep,  comprehensive  curse  which  included  us 
and  our  fathers,  the  diligence's  father  and  mother  and 
distant  relatives,  and  laid  special  emphasis  upon  the 
awful  destruction  which  was  sure  to  overtake  the 
religion  of  the  off  mule. 

About  an  hour's  journey  from  Tripoli  there  is  a 
very  old  pool  of  sacred  fish,  references  to  which 
are  found  in  works  of  travel  as  early  as  the  sixth 
century.  According  to  the  present  tradition,  the 
souls  of  soldiers  who  have  died  fighting  for  Islam  are 
reincarnated  in  these  fish.  The  Moslems  accordingly 
hold  them  in  the  greatest  reverence ;  and  if  anyone, 
particularly  if  a  Christian,  should  harm  them,  he 
would  almost  certainly  be  torn  to  pieces  by  an  infuri- 
ated mob.  While  thousands  of  men  and  women  in 
the  neighboring  villages  may  be  suffering  the  pangs 
of  hunger,  wealthy  zealots  will  buy  great  piles  of 
bread  for  the  fish ;  often,  indeed,  they  provide  in  their 
wills  for  a  certain  number  of  loaves  to  be  thrown 
each  week  into  the  pool.  The  fish,  which  are  about 
a  foot  in  length,  are  fat  and  bloated  as  a  consequence 
of  this  over-feeding,  and  are  unspeakably  ugly  in 
form  and  color.  We  estimated  that  there  were  be- 
tween four  and  five  thousand  of  them  in  the  little 
pool ;  and  it  was  a  sight  not  soon  to  be  forgotten,  as 
they  crowded  after  the  crumbs  which  we  threw  them, 
pushing  and  fighting  so  that  they  were  often  forced 

[203] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

quite  out  of  their  element  and  for  many  square  yards 
the  water  was  completely  hidden  by  the  loathsome, 
wriggling  mass. 

After  eight  hours'  drive  along  the  valley  that  leads 
from  Tripoli  into  the  interior,  a  sudden  turn  of  the 
road  brought  into  full  view  the  great  plain  of  north- 
eastern Syria.  We  were  entering  this  through  a 
break  in  its  western  wall,  the  pass  which  divides 
Lebanon  from  the  Nusairiyeh  Range,  inhabited  by  its 
cruel,  half-pagan  tribes.  At  our  right,  the  southern 
margin  of  the  plain  was  distinctly  marked  by  the 
abrupt  ending  of  Anti-Lebanon  and  of  the  nearer 
Bika4.  The  place  where  the  central  valley  of  Syria 
opens  suddenly  to  the  broad  expanse  of  wheat  country 
was  known  of  old  as  the  "  Entering  In  of  Hamath," 
and  was  the  northernmost  point  to  which  the  King- 
dom of  Israel  ever  extended.1  At  the  left,  low  hills 
rise  slowly  up  to  the  horizon;  in  front,  the  plain 
rolls  out  to  the  unseen  desert  and  the  ruined  palaces 
of  Palmyra. 

i  Many  eminent  scholars,  however,  follow  Edward  Robin- 
son (Biblical  Researches,  III.  568)  in  identifying  the  "En- 
tering In  of  Hamath"  (Judges  3:3,  I  Kings  8:65,  etc.),  not 
with  the  northern  end  of  the  Bika',  but  with  the  east-and- 
west  valley  between  the  Lebanon  and  Nusairiyeh  ranges, 
through  which  we  have  just  come.  While  I  incline  more  and 
more  toward  the  view  given  in  the  text  above,  the  question  must 
be  decided  by  one's  feeling  as  to  which  would  be  the  more 
striking  and  appropriate  landmark,  rather  than  by  any  di- 
rect evidence.  The  territory  included  would  be  practically  the 
same  in  either  case. 

[204] 


HAMATH   THE   GREAT 


It  is  one  of  the  world's  greatest  battlefields  that 
lies  below  us,  so  vast  that  Waterloo  and  Gettysburg 
might  be  fought  in  different  corners  and  hardly  see 
the  smoke  of  each  other's  cannonading.  But  no  mod- 
ern conflict  has  engaged  such  hosts  as  were  drawn  up 
here  in  martial  array.  They  came  from  the  desert 
capital,  came  up  from  Palestine  and  Egypt  by  way 
of  the  Entering  In  of  Hamath,  came  as  we  have  come, 
through  the  narrow  pass  leading  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Back  at  the  beginning  of  wars,  the  trained 
armies  of  Egypt  fought  the  Hittite  and  the  Chaldean 
here.  After  Babylonian  and  Persian,  Jew  and 
Syrian  and  Greek  had  become  mere  subjects  of  im- 
perial Rome,  it  was  here  that  Zenobia,  the  beautiful, 
talented,  ambitious  queen  of  Palmyra,  received  her 
crushing  defeat  at  the  hands  of  Aurelian.  Here, 
centuries  later,  Crusader  and  Saracen  battled  for 
the  land  they  both  called  Holy ;  here  chivalrous  Tan- 
cred  led  his  armies  and  valiant  Saladin  won  decisive 
victories. 

Two  things  stand  out  from  the  general  brownness 
of  the  plain.  Just  below  us  is  the  dazzling  white 
acropolis  of  Horns,  and  ten  miles  to  the  south  is  the 
deep  blue  of  the  lake  once  called  Qadesh,  the  "  Holy," 
which  was  dammed  up  in  its  little  valley  by  a  long- 
vanished  race  and  worshiped  before  history  began. 

We  saw  the  bright  reflection  from  the  smooth  sides 
of  the  mound  long  before  we  could  distinguish  the 
town  lying  beneath  it,  and  for  a  while  we  were  puzzled 

[205] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

as  to  what  it  was  —  this  huge,  symmetrical  object 
rising  so  abruptly  from  the  great,  flat  plain,  and 
seeming  doubly  immense  because  of  the  clear  air  and 
the  absence  of  any  neighboring  elevation  with  which 
to  compare  its  height.  The  acropolis  is,  indeed,  no 
insignificant  structure.  The  people  of  Horns  believe 
it  to  be  entirely  artificial,  and  its  appearance  is  in 
favor  of  such  an  hypothesis.  The  circular  hill  is 
almost  a  thousand  feet  in  diameter  and  its  platform 
stands  a  hundred  feet  above  the  plain.  The  sides  rise 
so  steeply  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  scale  them 
without  a  ladder ;  and,  to  make  the  summit  abso- 
lutely inaccessible  to  an  enemy,  all  the  outer  slope  of 
the  mound  formerly  bore  a  slippery  coating  of  small, 
square  basalt  blocks.  At  present  the  platform  is 
reached  by  a  long,  winding  path ;  but  even  this  is  so 
steep  as  to  be  almost  dangerous  in  places.  During 
the  Crusades  the  fortress  of  Horns  was  held  alter- 
nately by  the  Christians  and  the  Saracens ;  and  it  has 
suffered  from  so  many  assaults  that  nothing  of  the  old 
castle  now  remains  save  a  few  fragments  of  tumbling 
wall  and  a  ruined  gateway. 

As  we  came  down  into  the  plain  and  had  a  nearer 
view  of  the  acropolis,  we  seemed  to  distinguish  a  mul- 
titude of  houses  beneath  it;  but  the  difficulty  of  get- 
ting a  true  perspective  had  deceived  us.  The  city 
lay  beyond  and  lower ;  what  we  now  saw  were  not 
houses  but  graves.  It  was  a  great  metropolis  of  the 
dead;  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  mounds 

[206] 


HAMATH   THE   GREAT 


were  crowded  close  together  at  the  foot  of  the  for- 
tress-hill. Some  few  were  surmounted  by  stone  cano- 
pies ;  but  most  of  them  were  simple  Moslem  graves, 
ranged  in  long  ranks  looking  toward  the  sacred  city 
of  Mecca,  with  one  stone  at  the  head  and  another  at 
the  foot,  for  the  two  angels  to  rest  upon  as  they 
weigh  the  good  and  evil  deeds  of  the  dead.  As  one 
approaches  nearly  every  great  Syrian  city,  this  is  the 
order  of  interest  and  impressiveness ;  first  the  ruins  of 
former  power  and  grandeur,  then  the  graves  of  those 
who  trusted  in  that  power  and  gloried  in  that  gran- 
deur, last  the  modern  town  with  its  poverty  and 
squalor  and  ignorance. 

In  Greek  times  "  Emesa,"  as  it  was  then  called, 
was  a  place  of  no  little  size  and  importance,  and  dur- 
ing the  Roman  era  one  of  its  sons  wore  the  imperial 
purple 2  and  one  of  its  daughters  became  empress.3 
The  modern  city  contains  some  sixty  thousand  inhab- 
itants, the  large  majority  of  whom  are  Moslems.  The 
Christians  are  nearly  all  Orthodox  "  Greeks,"  but 
there  is  also  a  tiny  Protestant  community.  We  were 
guests  of  the  native  pastor,  and  later  it  lent  a  new 
impressiveness  to  our  memories  of  Horns  when  we 
learned  that  our  host  was  stabbed  the  very  week  after 
our  visit.  Fortunately,  however,  the  wound  was  not 
a  mortal  one.  The  city  is  the  market-place  of  Ard 
Horns,  "  the  Land  of  Horns,"  and  its  bazaars  are 

2  Heliogabalus.     See  foot-note,  page  191. 

3  Julia  Domna,  wife  of  Septimius  Severus. 

[207] 


SYRIA,   THE   LAND    OF   LEBANON 

crowded  with  fettdhm  from  all  the  country  round 
about.  The  chief  industry  is  the  weaving  of  silks. 
The  citizens  claim  that  there  are  five  thousand  looms, 
and  it  is  easy  to  believe  this  statement ;  as  we  walked 
along  the  streets,  which  were  well-paved  and  cleaner 
than  those  of  most  Syrian  towns,  there  were  whole 
blocks  where  every  house  resounded  with  the  whirring 
of  wheels  and  the  clicking  of  shuttles. 

The  home  of  our  host,  like  almost  every  other  resi- 
dence in  Horns,  opened  on  a  court  which  was  sepa- 
rated from  the  street  by  a  ten-foot  wall.  We  rose 
at  three  o'clock  the  next  morning  to  catch  the  dili- 
gence for  Hama,  said  good-by  all  around  in  the 
lengthy  Arabic  fashion  —  and  discovered  that  the 
key  to  the  one  gate  was  lost.  Thereupon  arose  great 
bustle  and  confusion ;  the  women  rushed  around  look- 
ing everywhere  for  the  missing  key,  while  the  worthy 
pastor  brought  a  clumsy  ladder  to  help  us  over  the 
wall.  But  just  as  we  were  preparing  to  carry  our 
heavy  luggage  up  the  ladder,  the  key  was  found,  and 
a  hard  run  brought  us  to  the  diligence  with  half  a 
minute  to  spare. 

This  second  coach  had  only  two  mules  and  one 
horse,  and  was  a  much  smaller  affair  than  that  which 
had  brought  us  from  Tripoli.  Although  the  driver 
was  a  Moslem  to  whom  alcoholic  beverages  are  strictly 
forbidden,  he  was  considerably  more  than  half-drunk. 
He  had  neglected  to  fasten  the  harness  properly  and, 
while  we  were  rattling  down  a  steep  hill,  the  tangle  of 

[208] 


HAMATH    THE   GREAT 


straps  and  strings  dropped  off  one  beast  and  dangled 
under  his  heels.  Then,  as  soon  as  the  harness  was 
repaired,  our  driver  let  his  reins  fall  among  the  flying 
hoofs.  He  took  these  mishaps  very  philosophically ; 
much  more  so,  to  tell  the  truth,  than  we  did.  Doubt- 
less he  pitied  us  Western  infidels  for  our  evident 
nervousness  and  lack  of  faith.  Suppose  that  the 
coach  should  indeed  upset  —  it  would  be  the  will  of 
Allah,  and  who  were  we  to  ob j  ect ! 

We  had  but  one  fellow-traveler,  a  fat  old  Moslem 
wearing  the  turban  of  a  Jiaj  who  has  made  the  pil- 
grimage to  Mecca.  He  was  a  most  companionable 
fellow  who  insisted  upon  explaining  to  us  all  the  points 
of  interest  along  the  road;  and  the  fact  that  his  ex- 
planations were  usually  wrong  did  not  in  the  least  de- 
tract from  our  enjoyment  of  his  company.  Every 
time  the  diligence  stopped  —  and,  with  our  drunken 
driver  and  worn-out  harness,  this  was  quite  often  — 
the  Haj  would  laboriously  descend,  spread  out  his 
handkerchief  upon  some  clean,  level  spot  alongside  the 
road,  and  turn  toward  Mecca  to  recite  his  prayers. 
He  must  have  been  a  very  holy  man. 

The  road  from  Horns  to  Hama  runs  almost  due 
north,  a  straight  white  line  cutting  across  the  green 
fields.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest  highways  in  the  world. 
For  at  least  five  thousand  years  caravans  have  been 
passing  along  it  just  as  we  saw  them  —  long  strings 
of  slow-moving  camels  laden  with  brightly  colored 
bags  of  wheat.  One  could  almost  imagine  that 

[209] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

Pharaoh  was  again  calling  down  the  corn  of  Hamath 
to  fill  his  granaries  against  the  impending  seven  years 
of  famine.  But  even  here  the  old  things  are  passing. 
Just  beyond  the  line  of  camels,  a  longer  line  of  peas- 
ant women,  with  dirty  blue  dresses  kilted  above  their 
knees,  were  carrying  upon  their  heads  baskets  of 
earth  and  stone  for  the  road-bed  of  the  new  French 
railway.  The  carriage  road  is  French,  too ;  and  a 
very  good  road  it  is.  We  noticed  some  men  repair- 
ing it  with  a  most  ingenious  roller.  A  huge  rounded 
stone,  drawn  by  two  oxen,  had  its  axle  prolonged  by 
a  twenty-foot  pole,  at  the  end  of  which  a  bare-legged 
Syrian  was  fastened  to  balance  the  contrivance.  If 
the  stone  had  chanced  to  topple  over,  the  spectacle 
of  the  captive  road-maker  dangling  at  the  top  of  the 
slender  flag-staff  would  have  been  well  worth  watch- 
ing. 

All  along  the  journey  we  were  reminded  of  the  fact 
that  this  was  not  only  the  East,  but  the  old,  old  East. 
The  soil  is  fertile,  but  the  very  wheat-fields  are  dif- 
ferent from  ours.  Only  a  few  yards  in  width,  they 
are  often  of  prodigious  length;  the  thin  green 
strips  sometimes  stretch  away  until  in  the  far  dis- 
tance they  are  lost  over  the  curve  of  the  treeless 
plain.  At  one  place  the  road  is  cut  through  a  hill 
honeycombed  with  rock-tombs,  which  the  Haj  said 
were  of  Jewish  origin.  Every  now  and  then  we 
passed  a  tell,  or  great  hemispherical  mound  built  up 
of  the  rubbish  of  dozens  of  ruined  towns  which,  one 

[210] 


HAMATH    THE    GREAT 


after  the  other,  were  built  upon  the  same  site. 
Even  as  late  as  Roman  times,  this  was  a  densely 
populated  and  prosperous  district.  There  is  now 
no  timber  available  for  building  purposes,  and  so  in 
a  number  of  villages  the  houses  are  constructed  with 
conical  roofs  of  stone.  Where  the  rock  happens  to 
be  of  a  reddish  tinge,  the  windowless  structures  re- 
mind one  of  nothing  so  much  as  a  collection  of  Indian 
wigwams ;  where  the  stone  is  white,  as  at  Tell  Biseh, 
it  glitters  and  sparkles  like  a  city  cut  out  of  loaf 
sugar. 

"  Hamath  the  Great,"  as  the  prophet  Amos  called 
it,  is  still  the  most  important  city  between  Damascus 
and  Aleppo.  It  is  larger  than  Horns  and  seems 
more  prosperous,  but  the  difference  between  the  two 
is  not  marked  enough  to  prevent  considerable  mutual 
jealousy.  Hama  is  especially  busy  in  the  early 
morning,  when  the  market  squares  are  crowded  with 
kneeling  camels  and  the  bazaars  are  bright  with 
newly  opened  rolls  of  rich  silks,  which  may  be  bought 
at  ridiculously  low  prices  —  if  the  purchaser  knows 
how  to  bargain. 

You  see  the  same  types  in  other  Syrian  cities  — 
rough  camel-drivers,  veiled  ladies,  ragged  peasants, 
underfed  soldiers,  Moslem  wise  men  and  reverend 
Arab  sheikhs.  Along  tourist-beaten  routes,  how- 
ever, the  picture  lacks  somewhat  of  perfection  be- 
cause of  the  Hotel  d'Orient  or  Hotel  Victoria  in  the 
background,  and,  just  as  you  have  warmed  to  an  en- 

[211] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

thusiastic  interest  in  the  bright  scenes  of  Oriental  life, 
a  pert  young  fellow  in  French  clothes  is  apt  to  ask 
you  into  his  shop  or  offer  to  guide  you  through  the 
bazaars  at  ten  francs  a  day.  But  while  we  were  in 
Hama  there  was,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  other  Frank  in 
the  city,  only  one  other  pair  of  European  trousers, 
and  but  two  natives  who  spoke  any  English.  There 
is  not  even  a  resident  missionary,  and  on  the  rare 
occasions  when  American  ladies  visit  the  city,  they 
adopt  the  local  costume,  veil  and  all,  in  order  to  avoid 
annoying  curiosity. 

The  citizens  enjoyed  us  fully  as  much  as  we  did 
them.  Everywhere  we  went  we  were  followed  by  a 
train  of  a  dozen  or  two,  and  when  we  stopped  to  look 
at  anything  the  crowd  threatened  to  interfere  with 
traffic  —  not  that  this  would  have  seemed  a  serious 
offense  to  the  Oriental  mind!  They  were  so  inter- 
ested in  our  every  movement  that  I  could  never  get 
room  to  use  my  camera  until  my  friend  would  walk 
a  little  way  off  with  an  intense  expression  on  his  face 
and  draw  the  cortege  after  him.  Yet  these  people 
were  not  in  the  least  noisy  or  rude  and  —  I  almost 
hesitate  to  make  such  a  startling  statement  about  a 
Syrian  city  —  I  do  not  remember  being  once  asked 
for  bakhsheesh. 

The  inhabitants  of  Hama  bear  the  reputation  of 
being  very  proud  and  fanatical ;  but  we  did  not  find 
them  so.  We  stayed  with  a  young  physician,  a  re- 
cent graduate  of  the  college  at  Beirut;  and  in  the 

[212] 


HAMATH    THE    GREAT 


evening  a  number  of  his  friends  dropped  in  to  see  us. 
As  our  own  supply  of  Arabic  was  not  at  that  time 
equal  to  the  demands  of  a  long  conversation,  we  es- 
sayed one  or  two  gymnastic  tricks,  only  to  be  im- 
mediately outdone  by  our  Syrian  acquaintances. 
Then  the  ice  was  broken,  and  we  settled  down  to  a 
long  evening  of  rough  games,  which  always  ended  in 
somebody  having  his  hand  slapped  with  a  knotted 
handkerchief.  These  strangely  garbed  men  with 
their  brown,  wrinkled  faces,  entered  into  it  all  with 
such  a  childlike  enjoyment  that  we  were  soon  laugh- 
ing and  shouting  as  we  had  not  done  since  the  Christ- 
mas days  of  boyhood ;  and  the  little  brazier,  with  its 
bright  bed  of  charcoal  that  sent  fearsome  shadows  of 
turbaned  heads  and  long  mustachios  dancing  on  the 
white  walls  overhead,  seemed  a  natural  substitute  for 
the  Yule  log  which  that  very  night  was  burning  in 
the  home  across  the  seas. 

As  the  Christians  form  a  quite  insignificant  mi- 
nority of  the  population  of  Hama,  they  receive  a  de- 
gree of  consideration  from  their  Moslem  neighbors 
such  as  is  not  granted  in  cities  where  the  two 
religions  are  more  nearly  balanced  and  where  jeal- 
ousy and  hatred  consequently  lead  to  frequent  re- 
prisals. Our  host,  Dr.  Taufik,  told  us  that  some  of 
his  warmest  friends  were  young  Moslems.  He  has  a 
large  practice  among  the  harems  of  the  city,  and  has 
performed  heroic  operations  upon  their  inmates. 
One  afternoon  he  guided  us  through  a  narrow,  wind- 

[215] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

ing  lane  filled  with  evil-smelling  garbage,  to  a  rude 
door  not  over  five  feet  high.  This  was  the  entrance 
to  the  finest  house  in  Hama,  the  residence  of  one  of 
the  doctor's  Moslem  patients.  Indeed,  Dr.  Taufik 
told  us,  with  perhaps  more  of  civic  pride  than  strict 
accuracy,  that  it  was  the  most  magnificent  dwelling  in 
all  Syria.  The  great  central  hall  was  decorated  in 
mosaics  of  colored  marble  and  overlaid  with  gold-leaf 
in  intricate  patterns  of  sumptuous  beauty.  Yet,  as 
is  so  often  the  case  in  the  East,  the  only  approach 
to  this  splendid  residence  was  through  filth  and  odors 
which  would  hardly  have  been  tolerated  in  the  worst 
slums  of  an  American  city. 

We  later  visited  the  home  of  another  wealthy  Mos- 
lem, also  a  patient  of  the  doctor.  This  time  we 
found  the  master  of  the  house  seated  in  the  middle  of 
the  state  drawing-room  —  being  shaved.  He  is  the 
only  man  I  have  ever  seen  who  looked  dignified  while 
in  the  hands  of  a  barber.  Even  with  lather  all  over 
his  face,  he  sat  with  the  bearing  of  a  prince  of  the 
blood  giving  audience  to  his  favorites.  His  atti- 
tude toward  us  was  marked  by  the  most  kindly 
courtesy.  He  allowed  us  to  indulge  in  the  untidy 
American  habit  of  wearing  shoes  in  the  house,  and, 
although  it  was  the  fast-month  of  Ramadan  and  he 
himself  could  eat  nothing  until  sunset,  delicious 
sweetmeats  were  served  us  in  delicate  cut-glass  dishes 
set  on  a  heavy  silver  tray.  After  we  had  watched 
our  host  put  on  his  furs  and  drive  off  behind  his  two 

[214] 


HAMATH    THE   GREAT 


beautiful  Arab  stallions,  we  asked  Dr.  Taufik  how 
much  wealth  was  necessary  for  one  to  live  in  such 
luxury,  and  what  was  the  business  of  his  Moslem 
friend.  "  Oh,  he  does  not  work  at  all,"  was  the 
answer.  "  He  does  not  need  to,  for  he  has  property 
which  brings  him  an  income  of  forty  thousand  pias- 
ters a  year "  -  which  equals  a  little  over  fourteen 
hundred  dollars ! 

Hama  has  an  acropolis  somewhat  larger  than  that 
of  Horns,  but  it  is  less  symmetrical  in  shape  and  is 
not  so  well  preserved.  From  the  summit  is  seen  the 
same  far-reaching  historic  plain;  but  the  attention 
is  soon  drawn  back  to  the  city  which  lies  just  below. 
If  the  visitor  has  resided  in  Syria,  it  is  not  the  twenty- 
four  minarets  which  hold  his  gaze,  not  even  the  Great 
Mosque,  which  is  one  of  many  shrines  that  claim  to 
guard  the  bones  of  John  the  Baptist;  but  beautiful 
and  interesting  above  all  is  the  river  which  winds  its 
slender  cord  of  blue  through  the  heart  of  the  city. 
Rising  on  the  eastern  slopes  of  Lebanon,  then  pass-, 
ing  northward  through  Hollow  Syria  and  the  Enter- 
ing In  of  Hamath,  dammed  up  by  the  old  Hittites  to 
form  the  Holy  Lake  by  Horns,  growing  slowly  as  it 
flows  through  the  "  Land  of  Hama  "  until  at  Antioch 
it  is  almost  deep  enough  for  modern  shipping  —  the 
Orontes  fathered  three  of  the  great  cities  of  the  an- 
cient world. 

There  are  few  real  rivers  in  this  land.  Although 
they  make  Damascus  so  fertile,  Abana  and  Pharpar 

[215] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

are  hardly  more  than  noisy  creeks.  It  is  true  that 
parts  of  Lebanon  fairly  sweat  with  springs,  but 
hardly  half  a  dozen  of  these  reach  the  coast  except  as 
winter  torrents  whose  stony  beds  dry  up  completely 
when  the  summer  comes.  The  Jordan  in  the  far 
south,  the  Leontes,  which  flows  into  the  Mediterranean 
between  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  the  Orontes  in  the  north 
—  these  complete  the  tale  of  Syrian  rivers,  and  Hama 
is  the  only  city  in  the  country  whose  stream  appears 
as  a  prominent  feature  in  the  landscape.  It  winds 
and  twists  so  that  you  meet  it  at  almost  every  turn 
of  the  street.  Along  one  bank,  a  line  of  closely  lat- 
ticed windows  mark  the  harems  of  the  wealthier  citi- 
zens ;  farther  on,  a  little  group  of  women  are  washing 
clothes  under  the  shade  of  the  cypress  trees ;  yonder 
a  weary  train  of  mules  are  standing  knee-deep  in  the 
cool  water,  while  a  crowd  of  naked  boys  are  sporting 
in  the  shallow  stream  with  as  much  energy  and  en- 
joyment as  any  truant  brothers  of  the  West. 

It  is  perhaps  because  the  Orontes  goes  to  the 
northward  instead  of  flowing  south,  as  do  the  other 
important  Syrian  rivers,  that  it  is  now  known  as 
el-Asi,  "the  Rebel";  or  the  name  may  have  been 
given,  as  some  old  Moslem  writers  suggest,  because 
its  channel  is  so  low  that  the  stream  cannot  be 
used  for  irrigation  unless  its  water  is  artificially 
raised. 

There  is  a  noise  so  loud  and  constant  that  you  have 
almost  ceased  to  hear  it  —  a  dull,  grave  diapason, 

[216] 


HAMATH    THE    GREAT 


fuller  and  deeper  than  the  heaviest  organ-stop.  Now, 
slowly  and  painfully,  it  forces  up  a  few  tones  of  the 
scale,  then  drops  sullenly  to  its  key-note.  "Do  mi 
sol,  DO  DO  DO.  Do  sol  la,  DO  DO  DO  "  —  on  through 
the  day  and  the  night  and  the  century.  It  is  the 
music  of  the  na'ura,  the  water-wheels  of  the  Orontes. 
You  see  them  now  and  then  in  southern  villages,  but 
as  other  cataracts  are  to  Niagara,  so  are  all  other 
water-wheels  to  the  water-wheels  of  Hama.  Great 
wooden  frames  revolving  painfully  upon  wooden 
axles  as,  by  means  of  buckets  along  the  circumfer- 
ence, the  river  lifts  itself  up  to  the  level  of  the  ter- 
races above  —  these  wheels  approach  very  near  to 
perpetual  motion.  We  stand  amazed  before  one  that 
is  forty  feet  high,  until  the  eye  travels  down  the 
river  to  another  wheel  of  sixty  feet;  and  our  guide 
takes  us  out  to  the  edge  of  the  city  where  a  monster 
ninety  feet  in  diameter  is  playing  its  slow,  solemn 
tune. 

It  is  impossible  to  shut  out  the  sound  of  their 
creaking.  I  know  of  travelers  who  have  been  so  dis- 
tracted by  the  incessant,  inescapable  noise  that  they 
could  not  sleep  in  Hama ;  but  we  found  the  music  of 
the  wheels  very  soothing,  like  the  distant  roar  of  the 
ocean  or  a  slow  fugue  played  on  some  cyclopean 
organ.  Now  they  are  in  unison,  now  repeating  the 
theme  one  after  another,  now  for  a  brief  moment  in 
a  sublime  harmony  never  to  be  forgotten,  then  once 
more  together  in  the  unison  of  a  tremendous  chorus. 

[217] 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  LEBANON 

As  we  drift  to  sleep,  the  song  of  the  river  calls  us 
back,  back,  back  to  the  Beginning  of  Things. 

"  Do  mi  fa,  DO  DO  DO."  What  care  the  wheels 
whether  Saracen  or  Crusader  conquer  in  the  fight 
below !  "  Do  fa  sol,  DO  DO  DO."  The  chariots  of 
Zenobia  are  rattling  across  the  plain  —  or  is  it  the 
fleeing  cohorts  of  the  Assyrian  host?  "Do  sol  la, 
DO  DO  DO."  The  dark  regiments  of  Pharaoh  are 
coming  up  from  the  south,  and  the  Hittite  city  rushes 
to  arms.  "  Do  mi  sol,  DO  DO  do  do."  And  old 
Orontes  is  slowly  pushing  around  the  great  wheels  of 
the  dream  city,  while  the  Iliad  is  unsung,  and  Cheops 
is  unquarried,  and  the  fathers  of  Abram  still  dwell 
in  Ur  of  the  Chaldees. 


[218] 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Roman   numerals  refer  to  chapters,  Arabic  to  pages 


Abana  River,  67-71,  88f,  106 

Abila,  69 

Abilene,    Tetrarchy    of,    69 

Ain  el-Beida,  130 

Ain  Fijeh,  70 

Ain  el-Wu'ul,   130 

Aleih  stories,  61  f 

Aleppo,  Province  of,  8 

Anti-Lebanon     7,     63,     67-71, 

178,  204 

Aurelian,  135-137,  205 
Assassins,  the,   10 
Awaj    River,  89n 

Baalbek,    XIII 

Climate,    188 

Great  stones,  198-200 

History,   189-191 

Ruins,    192-197 

Situation,    184f 
Baal-gad    (Baalbek),    189 
Barada,   see  Abana 
Bashan,  Land  of,  75 
Bedouins,   129-131,   143 
Beirut,  City,  7,  III 

Bay,  35 

Cape,  29 

Caves,  31 

Commerce,  36 

History,  26f 

Modern    aspects,   37f 


Name,  29 

Olive  orchards,  30 

Political  strife,  40f 

Religious  strife,  38 f 

Sand    dunes,    30 

Schools,  41-43 

Water  supply,  33 
Beirut,  Province  of,  8 
Bika',  63-65,  184f,  178,  204 
Bliss,  Daniel,   146-149 
Bosra,    78 

Butrus,  Patriarch,  156-162 
Byblos,  4,  7 

Cathedral  Rocks,  174 
Cedar  Mountain,  167,  176-179 
Cedars  of  Lebanon,  XII 
Chrysorrhoas,  see  Abana 
Coele-Syria,   see  Bikae. 
Coffee,  107-109 
Committee  of  Reform,  40 
Cross,  Festival  of,  179 


Damascus,  VII-IX,  7,  15 
Ananias,  Tomb  of,  119 
Bargaining   in,   98-101 
Bazaars,  96-104 
Beggars,  104 
Cafes,  106f 
Cemeteries,    116 
Commerce,  95,  111 
[221] 


INDEX 


Dogs,  104 

Dome  of  Victory,  88 

Fame  of,  90 

Fertility,  92  f 

Gate  of  Allah,  115 

Health  fulness,   70 

History,  91 

Jews,  118 

Khans,   110 

Kisan  Gate,  117 

Lepers,   117 

Meidan,  114-116 

Modern  aspects,   91 

Name,  90 

Night  noises,  105f 

Omayyade  Mosque,  89,  120- 
127 

Population,  96n 

Quarters,  118 

Residences  of  rich,  111-113 

St.  Thomas'  Gate,  106 

Saladin,  Tomb   of,    119f 

Street  called  Straight,  118f 

Street  calls,  lOlf 

Water  supply,  70 
Damascus,  Province  of,  8 
Death,  River  of,  4 
Deir  el-Kamr,  17 
Der'a,  77 
Diman,  164 
Dog  River,  4,  33-35 

Caves  of,  34f 

Druse  Massacres,  14-17,  78 
Druse  Mountain,  77f 
Druses,  11-17,  78,  84,  115,  138 
ed-Durazy,  11,  67 


Eastern  Mountains,  see  Anti- 
Lebanon 
Edrei,  77 
Emesa,   see  Horns 

Feruzi,  152,  154-156 
Fish,  Sacred,  203f 

George,  St.,  27-29,  116 
Ghuta  of  Damascus,  93 
Greek  Catholic  Church,  9 
Greek  Orthodox  Church,  9 

Kama,  64,  311-218 
Hamath,  see  Hama 
Hamath,  Entering  In  of,  152, 

204 

Hauran,  75-87 
Hauran,  Jebel,   77 
Hejaz  Railway,  76 f,  81 
Heliopolis    (Baalbek),   190 
Hermon,  Mount,  7,  65-67,  77, 

178 

Hollow  Syria,  see  Bikaf. 
Horns,   136,   152,   190,  205-208 
Horns,  Lake  of,  205 

Institutes  of  Justinian,  42 
Islam,    see   Mohammedanism 
Ismailians,  10 

Jebail,  4 

Jesus   Christ,  12,  27,  67,  122, 

170 
Job,  the  Patriarch,  78-80 


Earthquakes,  4,  32,  102 


Kadisha   River,  166,   174 
Kanawat,  78 


[222] 


INDEX 


Kanobin,    Monastery    of,    174 
Karayatein,    129 
Kasyun,  Mount,  88 
Keneiseh,  Mount,  5,  52,  62,  6T 
Keshaya,  Monastery  of,  175f 

Lebanon   Mountains,  I,  60-63 
Lebanon,  Province,  8,  16f 
Leja,  83-85 
Leontes  River,  64 

Maronites,   9,  14-17 
Metawileh,  10 
Mirage  in  Bika',  186 
Missionaries,  XI 
Mohammedanism 

Attitude  to  Jesus,  122 

Images  forbidden,  112f 

Position  of  women,  113f 

Power  of,  124f 
Muzeirib,  76 

Palmyra,  X,  69 

History,  133-138 

Modern  Village,  138,  140 

Ruins,    138-140 

Tombs,   132 

Persons    incidentally    men- 
tioned: 

Abdul  Hamid  II.,  76f,  108n 

Abel,  69,  88 

Abraham,  88,  90f,  98,  101 

Abulfeda,  93 

Adam,  88 

Alexander  the  Great,  26 

Amenhotep,   Pharaoh,   26 

Ananias,   119 

Antar,   142 

[223] 


Antoninus    Pius,    190 
Antony,   Mark,    133 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  146 
Asad   Pasha,   110 
Ashur-nasir-pal    III.    34 
Augustus,   26 
Aurelius,    Marcus,   34 
Baldwin  of  Flanders,  26,  91 
Balkis,     Queen     of     Sheba, 

129,   190 

Benjamin  of  Tudela,   190 
Bild'ad  the  Shuhite,  78 
Cain,   69 
Constantine  the  Great,  129, 

191 

Diocletian,    137 
Dodge,   Wm.   E.,  146 
Domna,  Julia,  190,  207 
Dorotheus,  Professor,  42 
Eliezer,   90 
Esarhaddon,  34 
Fakhreddin,  30 
Fatima,  116 
Hadrian,  168 
Hakim   Biamrillah,   11 
Hamzeh  ibn   Ahmed,   11 
Helena,  St.,  179 
Heliogabalus,  191n,  207 
Herod  the  Great,  26,  91 
Hiram    of    Tyre,    168,    173, 

183 

Ibrahim   Pasha,  30,  84 
Idrisi,  93 

Jesup,  Morris  K.,  146 
John  the  Baptist,  121,  123, 

215 

Josephus,  84,  90 
Justinian,   42,  137,    168 


INDEX 


Longinus,  135 

Louis    VII.    of    France,    91 

Mohammed,   12,   93f,  116 

Mukadassi,  188 

Naaman,  89n,  117,  120 

Nicodemus,  26 

Nureddin,  91 

Odenathus  II.,  134 

Og,  king  of  Bashan,  77 

Paul,  St.,  91,  116f. 

Pompey,  26 

Post,  Dr.  Geo.  E.,  168 

Rameses  II.,  26,  34,  79 

Rib-addi,  26 

Richard  Coeur  de   Lion,  28 

Robinson,    Edw.,    195,    204n 

Rustum  Pasha,  168 

Sapor  of  Persia,  134 

Selim,   Sultan,  34 

Sennacherib,  26,  34 

Severus,      Septimius,       190, 

207n 

Shalmaneser  II.,  34 
Solomon,  133,  190 
Tamerlane,   91,   137 
Tancred,  205 

Theodosius  the   Great,  175 
Tiglath-pileser    III.,   34,    91 
Titus,  26 
Uz,  90 

Vahballathus,  134 
Valerian,  134 
Varius,  see  Heliogabalus 
Vespasian,  26 
William    II.    of    Germany, 

120 

William  of  Tyre,  78 
Phallic  worship,   11 


Pharpar,  89n 

Pilgrim  Route,  114,   122 

Protestants,  40 

Qadesh,  see  Horns,  Lake  of 

Railways,  60,  72f,  76f,  82,  210 
Ras  Baalbek,  149-152 
Ras  esh-Shukkah,  4 
Rayak,  67 

Saladin,  27,  91,  119f 

Semakh,  73 

Sirocco,  80 

Smuggling,  32 

Suk  Wadi  Barada,  69 

Sunnin,  Mount,  5,  52,  67,  178 

Suweida,  78 

Syria,  II 

Boundaries,  6 

Manners    and    customs,    18- 
22 

Names,  6 

Population,  8 

Provinces,    8 

Religions,  9-13 
Syrian  Desert,  7,  95,  129-132, 

141 
Syrian      Protestant      College, 

IV,  42f,  146f 
Syrians,  16,  22-25 

Tadmor,  see  Palmyra 
Tell  el  Amarna  Letters,  26 
Tell  Biseh,  211 
Trachonitis,  see  Leja 
Transfiguration,   the,    67 
Tripoli,  8,  178,  201 


[224] 


INDEX 


Uz,  Land  of,  78  Yarmuk    Valley,    73-75 

Vilayets  of  Syria,  8 

Zebedani  Valley,  67f 

el-Wesen,  140  Zenobia,    Queen,    69,    134-137, 

Women,  position  of,  20,  113f  205 


[225] 


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